Yale University Library

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PRONAOS TO HOLY WRIT

ESTABLISHING, ON DOCUMENTARY EVIDENCE, THE
AUTHORSHIP, DATE, FORM, AND CONTENTS
OF EACH OF ITS BOOKS

AUTHENTICITY OF THE PENTATEUCH

BY
ISAAC M. WISE
Pbesident of the Hebrew Uniok College, Cincinnati

CINCINNATI
ROBERT CLARKE k CO
1891

OOPYEIGHT, 1891,
By ISAAC M WISE.

PREFACE.
MOST critics read little more than the index or table of
contents of the books which they criticise; few -of
them study an author before they attempt to laud or blame
him. The author of this Pronaos to Holy Writ criticises
the literature of the ancient Hebrews, and has read all those
books and every word thereof in the original for a term of
sixty-six years, i. e., from boyhood up to his seventy-second
birthday, and has attempted to acquaint himself with all
ancient versions and commentaries, and a large portion of
the modern translations and commentaries of the Bible.
Besides, he expounded Holy Writ these forty-eight years in
the synagogues and school-rooms, and before academical
classes in the college these sixteen years.
Therefore he ought to have written a much better book
than this Pronaos to Holy Writ. He should have dived
into the depth of this spiritual ocean, and brought up for
the reader the priceless pearls of divine wisdom and salva
tion, the gems and beauties of inspired eloquence, the grand
eur and sublimity of divine truth. Domineering realism,
however, in Biblical criticism as in all other realms of
science, forbade him to make such an attempt before the
authority and authenticity of the holy writings are estab
lished. God only did create light out of darkness; man
can not produce truth out of fiction, unless in his self-delu
sion problematic truth satisfies him. All so-called gems of
truth buried under the quicksand of fiction and deception
are problematic at best, if not supported by authoritative

4 Peeface.
corroborants. None can speak conscientiously of Bible
truth before he knows that the Bible is true, and especially
in its historical data. The science commonly called Mod
ern Biblical Criticism, actually Negative Criticism, which
maintains, on the strength of unscientific methods, that the
Pentateuch is not composed of original Mosaic material, no
Psalms are Davidian, no Proverbs Solomonic, the historical
books are unhistorical, the prophecies were written post fes
tum, there was no revelation, inspiration or prophecy, must
also maintain that the Bible is a compendium of pious or
even impious frauds, willful deceptions, unscrupulous mis
representations ; whence comes the Bible truth of which
they speak? It was necessary, therefore, the author thinks,
first of all things, to meet Negative Criticism with the docu
mentary evidence — and this is undoubtedly the legitimate
method of criticism — which establishes the truth of the
Bible, before he could speak intelligently of Bible truth. So
he could ofier to the reader a mere Pronaos to Holy Writ,
which will assist him in convincing himself of the truth of
the Bible, and point him to the door leading dnto the
interior of the sanctuary, which is the system of Bible
truth. To this end we must know first and foremost when
where, by whom and to what end these various books were
written, in order to judge correctly the quantity and quality
of truth contained in them. It is this which this Pronaos
chiefiy offers.
The author has paid particular attention to the most
ancient records of Israel's history, contained in Pentateuch
Joshua, Judges, Kings and Ruth, and to the semi-propheti
cal books, called Hagiography, for the following reasons :
1. If the historical veracity of the post-Pentateuchal
records is established, as he verily believes he has done, all

Preface. 5
arguments against the Mosaic origin of the Pentateuch are
untenable, inasmuch as in all matters of fact the direct testi
mony of veracious witnesses or the documentary testimony
of authentic records, are conclusively demonstrative oppo
site all circumstantial evidence of the a priori or a posterori
category, which after all can prove probability or possibility
only, and not certitude, which the direct or documentary
testimony establishes. If the advocates of Negative Criticism
urge that the author's arguments are insufl3.cient to estab
lish certitude, they must admit their sufiiciency to contro
vert their own. This places the problem upon the statu
quo of the uninterrupted tradition, and this testifies to the
Mosaic origin of the Pentateuch.
2. The same argument holds good with the Davidian
Psalms and the Solomonic Proverbs. They not only testify
directly to. the existence and acknowledged authority ofthe
Mosaic documents in the time of those kings as a heritage
then of the congregation of Israel, but also to the veritable
contents of those ancient documents being identical with
the Pentateuch now before us. We find then in Psalms the
Theology of Moses, in Proverbs the Ethics ot Moses, in
Job and Ecclesiastes the Apologetics of both, in Chronicles,
Ezra and Nehemiah the necessary addenda to the ancient
canons ; so that the entire Book is a logical organism, with
every part in its right place.
3. The authenticity of the Mosaic records is the founda
tion of all Bible truth. The whole system of righteousness,
justice and equity for public government and the conduct
of the individual, virtue and holiness as a form of divine
worship, monotheism itself with all the doctrine derived
from this principle, the entire canon of divinity and
humanity depends for evidence on the authenticity and

6 Pkeface.
veracity of the Pentateuchal records ; every other evidence
has been at different times refuted and is subject to skepti
cism now, perhaps, more than ever. If these records are
fraudulent, there exists no proof that whatever the chroni
clers, prophets and psalmists said or sang is not of the
same kind of fraud and imposition, and there is no Bible
truth. This explains the author's attempt to save the
records which establish Bible truth. The kind reader will
decide how successful or unsuccessful this attempt was, and
at least give credit to the author for honesty of purpose.
The Author.
Cincinnati, the 3d day of the month of Nissan, 1891.

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.— MAIN DIVISIONS AND CLAIMS OF SACRED
SCRIPTURES.
FABAQBAPH. PAGE.
I. The Religion of the Hebrews — Name, - - - 12
II. The Substance of the Theology contained, - 12
III. The Collection of Books called Bible, 13
IV. No book added, none changed its name, - 13
V. The forty-three books connected in twenty-four
volumes, - - - - - - 14
VI. The twenty-four books in the three divisions of
Thorah, Prophets and Hagiography, - 15
VII. The Doctrine involved in this division, - 17
VIII. Maimonides expounds this doctrine, - - - 18
IX. The division of Thorah in five books. Divisions and
Contents of each, - - 19
X. Antiquity of these divisions, - 23
CHAPTER II.— THE FIRST CANON.
I. Canon, a Greek translation of Thorah, - - 25
II. Cause of superiority and inferiority of the difi'erent
Canons, - - - - 25
III. The very first Canon. (Note on the Book of the
Covenant.) - - 26
IV. The Mosaic Scrolls noticed in the Pentateuch and
the matter added, - 27
V. Deuteronomy originally written by Moses, 30
VI. Moses the author of Genesis, - 41
VII. The Thorah delivered to the priests and the Thorah
delivered to the Levites and Elders. (Note on
Isaiah i, 13.) - - 33
VIII. What Documentary Evidence establishes, 34
CHAPTER III.-THE FORMER PROPHETS.
I. Position of Prophets in the Synagogue, - - 36
II. The Authors and Editors of the Biblical books accord
ing to ancient tradition recorded in the Talmud, 36
III. OflScial and cotemporary Chronography, - 37
IV. The Historical Books are synopses or combinations
from official and cotemporary records, 39
V. JOSHHA. Its orginal material, " . "
Yi. Divisions and Contents of the Book, 41
VII. Judges. Divisions and Contents of the Book and its
appendices, "¦ 42

8 Table of Contents.
PABASRAPH. FAGK.
VIII. Characteristics of the Book, - - - 43
IX. Characteristics of the Appendices, being of later
origin, - - - 44
X. Samuel the author of Judges (note on " Dan "), ¦ 46
XI. Joshua, being older than Judges, was written in the
Phineas age dates for both books, 47
XII. Samuel. Characteristics, - 48
XIII. Divisions and Contents, - - - 49
XIV. Authors, Samuel, Gad and Nathan and date fixed, 51
XV. Proofs for the Samuel portion, - 52
XVI. The objections reviewed, - 53
XVII. Kings. Divisions and Contents, 55
XVIII. Pour Authors in Kings, "- 55
XIX. The last synoptic could not have written the
former portions, nor could the first have writ
ten the last portions ; dates fixed, 56
XX. Historical value and authenticity of the four books, 57
CHAPTER IV.— THE LATER PROPHETS.
I. The second part of the Second Canon, the names of
the authors, - - 59
11. Uninterrupted succession of Prophets to Malachi,
425 B.C., - 59
III. Joel. Divisions, Contents, Time and Characteristics of
the book, - - - 65
IV. Objections considered, - 66
v. The four cotemporary prophets, dates of their
prophecies, - 67
V. Amos. Divisions, Contents and Characteristics, 69
VI. HOSEA. Divisions, Contents and Characteristics, 69
VII. Isaiah. Divisions, Contents Characteristics and Unity, - 70
VIII. Isaiah xl. to Ixvi. Contents, Date and Character
istics, - - 72
MiCAH in paragraphs v. and vi.
IX. Nahum. Divisions, Name and Place, Date and Contents, 74
X. Habakkuk. Divisions, Contents and Date, 75
XI. Zephaniah. Divisions, Contents and Date, - 76
xii. Obadiah. Divisions, Contents and Date, - - 77
XIII. Jeremiah. Name, Place, Date, Political Status, his relation
to the Reforms of King Joshiah, - 78
XIV. The Book of Jeremiah, Divisions, Contents and
Characteristics, - - 80
xv. Imitation in Jeremiah xlix., -, . - _ 82

Table op Contents. 9
PASAGRAPH. fAGE.
xvi. Jonah. Divisions, Contents, Characteristics and Date, 83
XXII. Ezekiel. Characteristics and Dates, - 84
xviii. Divisions of the book. Literature and Peculiari
ties of the author, 86
XIX. Three distinct parts of the book, their character
istics, the prophet's place in history, 87
XX. The Three Post-Exilic Prophets, Division of the
Twelve Minor Prophets as one book, - 89
XXI. Haggi. Divisions, Contents, Characteristics and Date, 90
xxii. Zechariah. Divisions, Genealogy, Contents, Characteristics
and Date, - - 91
XXIII. The Five Chapters of Zechariah ix. to xiii., 92
XXIV. Malachi. Divisions, Contents, Characteristics and Date, 93
CHAPTER v.— HAGIOGRAPHY.
I. Characteristics of Hagiography, and especially of
Psalms, Proverbs and Job, - - - 95
II. Psalms. The Five Books of Psalms and their contents, 95
III. The Headings in Psalms, ¦ - 96
IV. The " Menazeaoh," or Chief Musician, - 99
V. The various Compilers and the dates of each, 99
VI. The Book of Psalms, Divisions, Characteristics, 102
VII. The Theological Doctrine of Psalms, - - 103
VIU. Proverbs. Divisions, Characteristics and Form, - 104
IX. The Three Headings of Proverbs, Author, Com
pilers, . . - - - - 104
X. The Solomonic Ethics, Opinions of the Rabbis, 108
XI. The Solomonic Ethics as Commentary of the
Mosaic Ethics, - - 109
XII Object of Part III of the book, 111
XIII Objections considered ; Date fixed, 112
XIV. Job. The Book of Job an Epos, Form and Contents, 113
XV. The Position of the Book in the Canon, - 115
XVI. Time of its composition, - 118
XVII. The Fourth Book of Hagiography, - 119
XVIII. Ruth. Divisions, Contents, Form, Author and Time, 120
XIX. Song op Songs.
Divisions, Form and Characteristics, 121
XX Contents, - 122
XXI. As a Profane Poem, 123
XXII. An Anagoge, Author, Compiler and Time, 125
XXIII. Ecclesiastes Divisions and Characteristics, - 127
XXIV Cause of the Apparent Contradictions in the Book, 129
xxv. Author, Compiler and Date, - 130

10 Table of Contents.
PABAQHAPH. PAGE
XXVI. Lamentations.
Divisions, Contents and Form, - - 132
XXVII. Historical Foundation, Author and Date, - - 133
XXVIII, Esther. - >
Divisions, Contents, Purim, Historical Data,
Author and Date, - - 135
XXIX. Danfel. Divisions and Characteristics, - 138
XXI. Daniel vii , Author and Date, 140
XXXI. Ezra and Nehemiah
Divisions, - - - 141
xixii. Contents, - 142
xxxiii. Language, Arguments on the Author, - 144
XXXIV. Author, Compiler and Date, - 146
xxxv. Chronicles Divisions, Contents and Object, 147
xxxvi. Characteristics of Chronicles, Additions to Samuel
and Kings, - - . . . . 143
xxivii. The Diction of the Chronist, Author and Date, 150
XXXVIII. The Nine Chapters at the head of Chronicles,
Author and Time, - - - 151
XXIII. Four Books connected in two, now again four, 153
CHAPTER VI. — THE AUTHENTICITY OF THE PENTA
TEUCH.
I. The Traditions of Israel, - - . . 157
II. The Documentary Evidence direct. (Notes on
Bamoth and Shiloh and Deification of the Ark), 157
III. The Indirect Evidence. (Noteon Jeremiah xxxiv.), 162
IV. Argument e silentio, - - - 169
V. Argument from the Last Books of the Canon, 171
VI. The Three Middle Books of the Pentateuch not
edited in the time of Kings The Book of the
Law found in the Temple in the time of King
Joshiah, - - 173
VII. The existence and authority of the Thorah traced
up to Samuel, - - . 176
VIII. The three Middle Books must have been edited by
Samuel, or before his time, - - 177
IX, Documentary Evidence compels us to admit that
Mosaic records were edited after the death of
Moses (although none in Genesis or Deuter
onomy). Causes to reject the hypothesis of
Fragments, - - - - , - 179
I. The Jahvistic and Elohistic hypotheses of different
authors refuted, - - - . . 134
XI. Ezra the Scribe — what is known about him, - 187
III, What Ezra actually did, .... 137
XIII. The Invention of the Square-Letter Alphabet, - - 190
XIV. The Massoretic Divisions, - - 191
XV. The Men of the Great Synod and the Correctors in the
Temple, - - 192

CHAPTER I.
MAIN DIVISIONS AND CLAIMS OF SACRED SCRIPTURES.
THE religion of the Hebrews is commonly called Judaism,
instead of Abrahamism or Mosaism according to its
founders, Israelism or Hebrewism, according to its original
votaries, or niH^ JIXT Yirath Jehovah, "the Worship of
Jehovah," as it is called in its own sources,* and which is
its main characteristic ; because the Graeco-Roman writers
had no knowledge of this system of religion prior to the
time of the Hebrews' Second Commonwealth, and then the
land was called Judea and its people Judei, and consequently
its teachings were called Judaism. The word Judaism, how
ever, being popularly understood to designate the religion of
Israel, it was deemed advisable to use it also in this treatise.
2. The substance of the theology of Judaism is contained
in the Thorah, called in the Bible, niH* niin " the Thorah
of Jehovah," and in the Talmud, 2nD2£J' ITTin " the writ
ten Thorah," or also n"1in ?tTOPT HB'On " Pentateuch," in
Aramaic, KDHIi^ "the divine Canon." It contains not
only the revelations of God's nature and will, his essential
ity, and attributes conceivable to man, but also the body of
ethical doctrine, following with logical necessity from the
cognition of the one, only and true God, to guide man and
mankind to happiness. In this second sense of " the Tho
rah of Jehovah," the Greeks called it Nomos, " the Law ; "
for whatever follows with logical necessity from the cogni
tion of God is canon and law to man. The Thorah is
expounded, expanded, amended, and the history of its
development and progress recorded in the other books of
* Isaiah xxxiii. 6 ; Proverbs i. 7, and many other places, especially
in Psalms and Proverbs, always improperly rendered " Fear of the
Lord.'-

12 Main Divisions op Sacred Scriptures.
the collection called the Bible, by inspired teachers, and by
uninspired savants, or sages in the post-biblical literature of
Israel ; for all of whom, however, the Thorah was and must
unexceptionally be taken as source and standard. It is
presumed that the revelations of God's nature and will in
the Thorah are the ultimate for man's comprehensibility
and his attainment of happiness in time and eternity.
Therefore, the Thorah is eternal. This always was universal
doctrine among orthodox Israelites.
3. The collection of sacred books called by Grseco-Latin
writers Biblia,* " the Book," "the Bible," as it is now before
us, consists of the following forty-three books :
Five books of Moses, one of Joshua, one of Judges, two
of Samuel, two of Kings, one each of Isaiah, Jeremiah,
Ezekiel, and twelve of the Minor Prophets, connected under
the Aramaic name of "IDj^nn ; five of Psalms, one each of
Proverbs, Job, Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, Lamentations,
Ruth, Esther, Daniel, Ezra and Nehemiah, and two Books
of Chronicles. Each of these books is mentioned in a
source of the Talmud called Beritha. (Baba Bathra, lib.)
Quotations from each of these books occur in the Talmud
and its sources, f The main commentaries accepted by the
Israelites are contained in the Talmud, of which there exist
two collections ; one compiled in Palestine at the end of the
fourth Christian century, is called the Talmud of Jerusalem
(Talmud Yerushalmi), and the other, compiled in Persia
at the end of the fifth Christian century, is called the Tal
mud of Babylon (Talmud Babli). The extant written
sources of both collections, besides the Bible, are the six

* Originally the plural " books," used as a singular in Latin to
denote the Book emphatically.
t See " Toldoth Aaron," by Aaron ben Moses, of Pisaro, and
"Toldoth Jacob," by Jacob Sasportes, Amsterdam, 1652, added
also to some editions of the Rabbinical Bible. These books fur
nish a complete index of Bible passages quoted in the Talmud, also
in Zohar, Akedah and Ikkarim. These quotations are of the same
importance for text criticism as would be a manuscript of the whole
Bible from the second and third centuries.

Pronaos to Holy Writ. 13
volumes of statute law called Mishnah, on which the Tal
mud chiefiy comments, Tosephta, Mechilta, Safra, Sifri,
Pirkei Rabbi Eliezer, Seder Olam and Meguillath Taanith, all
of which except Mishnah are called Beritha or " outside "
of Mishna, and were written in the first half of the second
Christian century, with additions from the beginning of the
third. Other and less authoritative commentaries are the
Targumim, Aramaic and Syriac versions and paraphrases of
Scriptures ; the post-Talmudical homilies contained in the
various collections called Midrash and Pesikta; the Moorish-
Spanish and French Rabbinical commentators and philoso
phers between the tenth and sixteenth centuries ; and above
all the Massora, which rendered the text legible and intel
ligible to the common man by providing it with vocal and
accentual signs according to authoritative traditions.
4. As far back into antiquity as the post-biblical litera
ture of the Hebrews reaches, no book of the Bible, Nehe
miah excepted, was added, omitted, or changed from its
original name. Also, the twelve Minor Prophets are men
tioned as one book in the Beritha, the Septuagint and in the
book of Joshua ben Sirah (xlix. 35, in Greek 10) ; except
the Book of Nehemiah, which was still a part of the Book
of Ezra when the Talmud was written (Sanhedrin 936).
Samuel and Kings may have been considered one book by
the Greek translators, but there is no trace of it in these
sources. The three books, Samuel, Kings and Chronicles,
were divided each into two by Hieronymus (Prol in Reg.).
In the first Bibles printed in Socinio (1488) and in Brescia
(1494) the ancient divisions are retained. In the Basel
edition of 1534, and also in the Bomberg Rabbinical Bibles,
the subdivisions of Hieronymus were adopted, to be thence
copied into subsequent prints. In order to retain the tra
ditional twenty-four books of the Sacred Scriptures, the
division of Ezra into Ezra and Nehemiah was accepted, and
the five books, viz. : Ruth, Song of Songs, Lamentations,
Ecclesiastes and Esther — read in the synagogue on five
different days of the year — were reckoned one book. A
Book of Daniel, wherein it was presumed Daniel had prophe
sied that one of the Greeks should destroy the empire of the

14 Main Divisions of Sacred Scriptures.
Persians, is mentioned in Josephus (Antiq. x. viii. 5) as
having been shown in the Temple of Jerusalem to Alexan
der the Great.
Psalms is divided into five books, viz. :
1. Chapters i. to xli.
2. Chapters xiii. to Ixxii.
3. Chapters Ixxiii. to Ixxxix.
4. Chapters xc. to cvi.
5. Chapters cvii. to the end of the book.
Each of the four books closes with a doxology, " Amen
and Amen," or "Amen Hallelujah," similar to Nehemiah
viii. 6, and I. Chronicles xvi. 35, 36, to which is added at
the close of the second book 'B" p 1)1 n'^flD t>:i, " Fin
ished are the prayers of David, son of Jesse."
Not all Psalms are Davidian, as their headings show.
The ancient rabbis inention nine older poets, like Moses in
Psalm xc. and contemporaries of David.
There can be little doubt that Psalms were written much
later, or even up to the time of Simeon the Asmonean, and
that the five-book division refers to five collections made at
difi'erent times, all of which were accepted in the Canon
without re-arrangement. Still, as part of the Canon,
Psalms is counted as one book only, even in the most
ancient notices ; it is evident, therefore, that those collec
tions were made prior to the establishment of the third
Canon. The division of chapters are different. Psalms had
147 chapters with them. Psalms i. and ii. were naturally
counted as one, on account of the beginning of the first and
the closing of the last being similar. It is uncertain which
other Psalms were originally connected.
5. The forty-three books of the Bible were connected in
twenty-four volumes, as they are now before us in the Mas
soretic text. Josephus (Contra Apion, i. 8) reports twenty-
two books of Scriptures, " which are justly believed to be
divine," viz. : five books of Moses, thirteen books of the
Prophets, from Moses to King Artaxerxes, and four books
containing "hymns to God and the precepts for the con
duct of human life." Taking into the second class of
Scriptures "all that was done between Moses and Artax-

Pronaos to Holy Writ. 15
erxes," his thirteen books must have comprised Joshua,
Judges, Samuel, Kings, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, twelve
Minor Prophets, Chronicles, Daniel, Ezra and Nehemiah,
Ruth and Esther. His third division must have consisted
of Psalms, Proverbs, Job and Ecclesiastes, either with the
Song of Solomon or without it, as he never refers to it.
Lamentations, called in the Talmud Kinnoth, " elegies;" was
counted with Jeremiah
Hieronymus, although he mentions the twenty-four
division (Prol, in Reg.),* and also the Hebrew names ofthe
various parts thereof, yet adopted the twenty-two division
of Josephus. The Church, according to the Index Scrip
turarum Nicephori, and the Anathasian Index,f retained the
Hieronymus division, also in the reconstructed Septuagint.
In all rabbinical sources the twenty-four division only
is mentioned. It is noted first in the Talmud ( Taanith Sa),
in connection with Rabbi Adda bar Ahabah (second Chris
tian century) as an existing fact. Ben Asher;]: reports this
rabbi as the first Massorite who came after 138 (Christian
Era) from Palestine to Babylonia.§ It seems possible,
therefore, that the twenty-four division was established in
the Academy at Jamnia, under Rabbon Gamliel II. ||
6. The twenty-four books of Scriptures are divided into
three canons, Thora, Nebiim and Kethuhim, " Law," " Proph
ets " and " Hagiography." This division is as old as the
post-biblical traditions of the Hebrews. The books belong-
* See also Wolff', " Bibliotheca Hebraica."
tCredner, "Zur Geschichte des Canons."
i Dikdukei Hat-Taamim, Strack Edition, p. 56.
§It is maintained in Tosephoth to Baba Bathra 22a and Bashi to
Kiddushin 726, that there were two rabbis of this name and the
older one was an older cotemporary of the author of the Mishnah.
II It ia evident from the Talmudical statement T13jS ^typ2 that a
revision of the Canon and the elimination of the books of Solomon
and Ezekiel from it was proposed and discussed in that academy
under Gamliel or his immediate predecessor, Jochanan ben Saccai,
but was not accomplished, perhaps by the opposition of the then
most important teacher of that day, Akiba ben Joseph, who
declared even Song of Songs most holy.

16 Main Divisions of Sacred Scriptures.
ing to each canon are named in the Talmud (Baba Bathra
14). The order of the books following each other in each
canon, as given in the Talmud, with but one exception, was
preserved intact by the rabbinical casuists.*
In Prophets a difference of opinion prevails only as to
the position of Isaiah in the prophetical canon before Jere
miah or after Ezekiel, which begins in the Talmud {in loco
cit.) and reaches down to the seventeenth century. In
Hagiography a difference of opinion in the order of the
books prevails with the Talmud and the casuists on the one
side and the authors of the written Massora on the other, f
The printed Bibles (Hebrew) follow the order laid down
by the rabbis in Talmud and casuists, and place Isaiah before
Jeremiah. These differences being of no particular impor
tance, any further investigation is unnecessary in this place.
The high antiquity of this three-division is evident from
the preface of the Grecian translation of Ben Sirah's book,
about 125 B. C. ; from Josephus (in loco cit.) ; and from the
rabbinical records of the post-biblical traditions,! although
it was not adopted in the Septuagint, Peshito, Vulgata,
or in the Christian Church. Also in Maccabees II. 13 it
is maintained that in the library founded by Nehemiah
there were the "books" of the Kings and the Prophets,
also the " writings " of David and the " letters " of kings
who sent presents to the temple. This shows that the
" writings " even of David were a different class of scriptures
from the books of the Kings and Prophets, supposed to have
been the case in the days of Nehemiah. Ibid. xv. 9, the Law
and Prophets only are mentioned in connection with Judah
Maccabee, perhaps because the third Canon was not estab
lished yet in his days.
* See Maimonides, Hilch, Sepher Thorah vii. 15, and Joseph Caro,
Joreh Deah, Sepher Thorah, 283, 5.
t See Amsterdam Rabbinical Bible Koheleth Shelomo, of 1724, pp.
10, 11; also Wolff in Bibl. Hebr. Part II. p. 51, col. 5: Hierony
mus, Prol. in Beg
tFor instance Taanith Sa; Baba Bathra 9a and 13b; Sabbath, 14,
and ibid. Talmud, 116r; and ibid. Yerushalmi xvi. 1 ; Nedarim, 111,
9; Meguillah I. and elsewhere.

Pronaos to Holy Writ. 17
7. This involves a doctrine. The rabbis claimed plenary
inspiration for Moses only (Baba Bathra 15a, and Mena-
coth 30a 2m3"l nOIK ntr'DT *1D1N 'rryp'n), and not also
for the Prophets. In the synagogue Moses only was read
and expounded, and sections from the Prophets were read
in conclusion of exercises in the synagogue or academy to
be expounded by the Meturgam. (See Rapaport's Erech
Millin, Art. NDIDflK). In regard to the Hagiography, the
ancient Halacha was fD N'7N B^Tlpn 'DDDi fHlp VU
rhj^d?) nnjOn " We r^d not in the Hagiography except
from and after the afternoon service," although it was per
mitted to take texts from them for the morning homilies.*
So Hagiography was considered of inferior holiness to
Prophets (See Yerushalmi in loco cit.), and Prophets inferior
to the Pentateuch ; so much so that it was maintained that
Prophets and Hagiography may in future be abolished,
because the Prophets have not been permitted to add a new
law to that of Moses ; and also, " If Israel had not sinned
he would not have been given more than the five Books of
the Law, and the Book of Joshua (Nedarim 226 and Yerush
almi Meguillah I, 7),
It appears that prior to Rabbi Jehuda the Nassi, it was
held that the three divisions of the Bible must not be writ
ten in one scroll, so that they appear not of equal holiness, f
Moses Maimonides, according to his responses, as given by
his son Abraham, in the beginning of Maaseh Rokeach, would
not permit the three divisions of the Bible to be written in
one book, because reading in the Prophets or Hagiography,
parts thereof would be placed upon the Thorah, which is not
permitted, on account of the superior holiness of the Tho
rah. " Prophets and Hagiography must not be placed upon
the Thorah." (Megillah 27a) '?;? D^3inD1 D'H'^l pjllJ pNI
The rabbis of the Talmud called the Prophets H^^p ^DT
* Compare Tosephta Sabbath 14 to Talmud Yerushalmi, ibid. xvi.
1, and Babli ibid. 1166.
t Mescluth Sophrim III, and the Talmudical passages noted there
by Naumburg in his Nachlath Jacob, and by Asulai in hia Perush.

18 Main Divisions op Sacred Scriptures.
"Words of Tradition," and not riDDDB' Hiin "the written
Thorah " or NiTIIK, and advanced the hermeneutic rule,
fr^y X'? n'7ap nniQ min nni* "We teach not mat
ters of the law (basing upon) words of the Prophets."
The Tiberian Massorites also call the Thorah Oritha,
" Canon," and the other books of Scriptures Ashlamta, " sup
plement or addendum." The Karaites rejected this doctrine,
and consider the whole Bible equally holy, as the Chris
tians do.
8. Maimonides expounds the respective passages from
the ancient rabbinical literature to this effect, f The pro
phetical power of Moses, like his mission and his power to
work miracles, was unique and superior to all prophets who
lived before or after him. Therefore the Thorah is the holi
est book; it never was and never will be changed or
replaced; it is eternal. Among the other prophets there
were higher and lower degrees of perfection, so that not all
passages of prophetical Scriptures are of equal divinity;
they are clearly distinguished by their various introductions.
He speaks of eleven degrees of prophetical inspiration, all.
inferior to the inspiration of Moses and superior in nine de
grees to the authors of Hagiography, including Daniel, the
Judges and Kings of Israel, with David and Solomon. These
Hagiographists wrote, spoke or performed deeds of valor by
a divine impulse and assistance called JJ'nipri im "the
Holy Spirit," which comprises only the first and second de
grees of inspiration, leading to the prophetical degrees.
Therefore, Hagiography is less divine than Prophets, and
both less divine than the Thorah.
In Moreh I. 27, Maimonides points to Onkelos, the first
Aramaic translator of the Pentateuch (beginning of the sec-

*(Hagigai 105, Niddah 23c[, Baba Kammah 6), on which point see
Shene Luchoth Habberith (n'btJ'). They also called the whole Bible
NIpD the " Reading," the literature which is read, in contradistinc
tion of the oral laws and traditions, which were spoken and not
read. tMoreh, Part II,, chap. 32, e. s. ; Yeiodei 7iai-r/ior«, chapters 7
to 10.

Pronaos to Holy Writ. 19
ond Christian century), as an additional authority for the
distinction made among the prophetical passages of Scrip
tures according to the higher or lower degree of the prophet
in the scale of inspiration. Then in Part IL, chapter 45,
where he describes the various degrees of prophecy, he sets
down the Scriptural terms which distinguish the various
passages and characterize them.
9. The division of the Thorah into five books is men
tioned continually in the Talmud and its sources (Mishna
Foma, viii. 1), and especially in Yerushalmi Sotah v. 6:
" Moses wrote five books of the Thorah, and then again he
wrote the section of Balak and Balaam." Its antiquity is
demonstrated by the most ancient translations of the Penta
teuch — the Greek, Syriac and Aramaic — by Josephus and
Philo, and especially by the Samaritan Pentateuch, all of
which are precisely the same five books, with some slight
inversions in the Samaritan Pentateuch in favor of Samari
tan doctrine.
(a) ri''tJ'K12 (Bereshith), which is the first word of the
Bible, called by the Greeks " Genesis," consists of fifty chap
ters (modern division),^ forty-three Sedarim (ancient divi
sion) and 1,534 verses, the midst of the book in verses is
xxvii. 40. Genesis contains the history of creation, the first
parents and their three sons, the genealogy of the ten antedi
luvian patriarchs, the Noachian deluge and covenant, the
post-Noachian genealogy, origin and location of the seventy
nations, including the building of the Tower of Babel, the
subsequent dispersion of the families and the origin of lan
guages ; and begins in the twelfth chapter with the life, cove
nant and circumcision of Abraham, which together with the
history of the three generations of his descendants, make the
contents of the whole book. It is all simple prose except iv.
22, 24, Lemech's address to his wives, and chapter xlix., the
blessings of Jacob, which are primitive poetry in a peculiar
form. (b) niQLJ' ( <S/i,emo</!,), which is the first noun in this book,
called by the Greeks " Exodus," consists of forty chapters
(modern division), 29 Sedarim (ancient division), 1,209
verses, the midst thereof is xxii. 27. It contains the history

20 Main Divisions of Sacred Scriptures.
of the Israelites in Egypt, the birth, early fate and calling of
Moses (Mosheh) and Aaron, the struggle for liberation, the
miracles, the exode from Egypt, the passage through the Red
Sea and the Song of Moses, voyage from the sea to the wilder
ness of Sinai, including the organization at Marah,* and the
war against Amalek, water from the rock and the manna ;
then the revelation on Mount Sinai, the primeval cult (xx.
21-23) and the first Mosaic legislation, including in xxiii.
10, 11 Leviticus xxv., the laws of the Sabbath and Jubilee
years ; and in Exodus xxiii. 14-19 the laws from ibid. xii. 14-
27, 33-49, and chapter xiii. 1-16, concerning Passover, other
holy days, and the sanction given to the first-born as the
priests of the people. Chapter xxiv. closes the history of the
revelation and the establishment of the covenant. From
chapter xxv. to the end of the book, with the exception of
chapters xxxii., xxxiii. and xxxiv. contains all appertain
ing to the construction ofthe national sanctuary audits furni
ture, the priestly garments, and the form of worship in the
tabernacle, being evidently an introduction to Leviticus,
while the chapters xxxii. to xxxiv. are evidently the conclu
sion of Exodus. The whole book, with the exception of the
song at the Red Sea, is prosaic.
(c) K"lp*1 ( Vayikra), which is the first word of the book,
called in the Talmud Thorath Kohanim, " the Thorah of the
Priests," and by the Greeks " Leviticus," consists of twenty-
seven chapters (modern division), 23 Sedarim (ancient
division), 859 verses, the midst thereof is xv. 7. It contains
from chapter i. to vii. ordinances and prescriptions concern
ing sacrifices not properly belonging to the tabernacle cult.
From chapter viii. to x., to which belongs also chapter xvi.,
is the detailed history of the dedication of the tabernacle,
which actually belongs after Exodus xl., between the verses
33 and 34. It was placed here as the proper introduction to
the ritual laws from chapters xi. to xxiv., outlined in chapter
X. verses 10 and 11 as the duties of the priests, " to distin-
* Exodus XV. 22-26, which appears to be identical with the organ
ization in ibid, chapter xviii., following the advice of Jethro. The
ancient rabbis are of another opinion.

Pronaos to Holy Writ. 21
guish between the holy and the profane, the unclean and the
clean, and to teach the children of Israel all the ordinances
which God hath spoken concerning them by the hand of
Moses." Chapter xix. specifies particularly the material for
thig third priestly duty. Chapter xxii. contains the laws
concerning the priests personally and exclusively. Chapters
xxiii. and xxiv. repeat the commandments of the holy days
to specify the prescribed sacrifices for those days and the
priests' duties concerning them. This last chapter concludes
with the story of the blasphemer in the wilderness and the
laws connected therewith, and this seems to be the proper
conclusion of the book. Chapter xxv. on Sabbath and Jubi
lee years and the poor laws connected therewith, and chap
ter xxiv. containing prophecies of Moses, as the heading of
the former and the conclusion of the latter shows, belong to
the close of Exodus, the first Mosaic legislation. Chapter
xxvii., containing the laws of valuation and ransom of per
sons, animals and things vowed to the sanctuary, in which
the priest is concerned and the year of Jubilee referred to, is
a proper conclusion of both the first legislation of Moses
and the laws of the cult, and concludes well the book of
Leviticus. (d) "131X33 (Bamidbar) which is the first word in the
book after " The Lord spake to Moses," called in the Talmud
Ompfln tJ'Qin one of the five parts of the Pentateuch re
ferring to the numbering, and by the Greeks " Numbers,"
consists of thirty-six chapters (modern division), 32 Sedarim
(ancient division), 1,288 verses, the midst thereof is xvii.
20. This book is fragmentary. It begins with the census
and organization of the camp in the wilderness, in which
the Levites are taken separately, which could have been or
dained only after the appointment of the Levites instead of
the first-born, hence after the revolt of Korah, narrated in
chapter xvi., to which is clearly referred in iv. 28. This
part, including ordinances concerning the Levites, closes
V. 1-4, an ordinance concerning the hygiene of the camp, to
which is added an additional law concerning trespass, which
actually belongs to Leviticus. Then follow in chapters v.
and vi. the laws concerning the suspected woman, Sotah, and

22 Main Divisions op Sacred Scriptures.
the Nazirite (Nazir), one who vowed abstinence from wine
and observed special cleanness and purification. From vi.
22 to the end of vii. follows a sequel to the dedication of the
tabernacle, the gifts and sacrifices of the twelve princes of
the tribes, headed by the oldest liturgical formula on record,
the priestly benediction. Chapter viii. begins with an addi
tional prescription concerning the candlestick in the taber
nacle, followed by ordinances for the Levites. Chapter ix.
contains the ordinance of a substitute Passover in the second
month for those who were not in condition to observe it
properly in the first month, and concludes with the signals
given in the camp by the pillar of cloud upon the tabernacle.
Chapter x. begins with the signals given in the camp with
two trumpets, also their use at the sacrifices ; continues with
the marching regulation, and the names of the captains of
the tribes, and of the four divisions ; then follows the engage
ment of Chobab as a guide in the wilderness, and in con
clusion two brief prayers of Moses, one starting the host and
another calling it to rest. Chapter xi. contains the story of
the quails, and the constitution of the council of the seventy
elders. Chapter xii. narrates the murmuring of Miriam and
Aaron against Moses, and the definition of true prophecy.
Chapters xiii. and xiv. narrate the story of the twelve spies ;
chapter xv. is an addition to Leviticus, then the story of the
Sabbath-breaker in the wilderness, closing remarkably with
the ordinance of the national fringes and colors. Chapters
xvi., xvii. and xviii. narrate the story of the Korach revolt
and its consequences, together with additional ordinances
for the Levites ; xix. tells the ordinances concerning the red
heifer and its ashes of purification. With chapter xx. begin
the historical notices from thirty-seven years later, inter
spersed in chapters xxii. to xxiv. by the account of Balak
and Balaam and his poems. Chapter xxv. contains the
appointment of Phineas to the high priesthood. With chap
ter xxvi. begins the second census and the second legisla
tion of Moses, which is continued and closed in Deuteron
omy. Except the poems of Balaam it is all prosaic.
(e) DHDl (Debarim), which is the first noun of the
book, called also niin nJtJ'O (Mi^hneh Thorah), "Review

Pronaos to Holy' Writ. 23
ofthe Thorah" (Deut. xvii. 18), and by the Greeks "Deuter
onomy," consists of thirty-four chapters (modern division),
twenty-seven Sedarim (ancient division), 955 verses, the
midst thereof is xvii. 10.
It contains from chapter i. to xi. and xxvi. to xxxi. 9, the
last speeches and prophecies of Moses ; from xii. to xxv. the
continuation of the second legislation of Moses expounding
and amending the first as required for the practice in the
land which the Israelites now approached. Chapter xxxi.
contains the inauguration of Joshua and the delivery of the
former Thorah to the custody of the Levites, to be kept at
the side of the ark of the covenant, and the delivery of
Deuteronomy to the Levites and all the elders of Israel,
commanding also that it be read in public during the clos
ing feast of the Sabbath year. Chapter xxxii. contains the
last song of Moses ; the first is in Exodus xv. Chapter
xxxiii. contains the blessing and departure of Moses.
The whole Thorah contains 5,845 verses, the middle of
which is Leviticus viii.' 8. The middle of all its words is in
Leviticus x. 16. Darosch closes the first, and Darash opens
the second half. The middle of all its letters is the vav
of the word pplj in Leviticus xi. 42.
10. There can be no doubt that the divisions of the Bible,
according to the traditions and documents of the Hebrews,
reach up to the time of the original establishment of the
three canons. There exist no traditions and no documents
in this matter in antiquity or explicitness approximately
equal to those of the Israelites.
It is no less certain that the subdivisions of every biblical
book into major and minor paragraphs, verses, words and
the counting of letters, were fixed and carefully noted by the
ancient scribes. It seems, therefore, impossible that the
text, at least in its consonantal letters, could have been
amended or interpolated at any time within the two thou
sand years of Hebrew post-biblical traditions and docu
mentary records. But the question in criticism goes far
beyond that, and the critics rely more on a priori argument
than on documentary evidence, a species of reasoning which
appears illegitimate to us, if apphed to the investigation of

24 Main Divisions of Sacred Scriptures.
facts and traditions based on the testimony of documents.
Therefore, before we oan discuss the question of the authen
ticity of the Pentateuch, the authorship of Moses and the
kindred topics, we must first ascertain all the facts from the
documents which have a bearing on the main question.
This, and this only, can lead to approximate certainty. It
is the entire Hebrew Bible we must know first, to collect
therefrom the system of facts by which certitude in this
matter can be obtained.

CHAPTER II.
the first canon.
THE term Canon is of Greek origin, and is, in its ecclesi
astical application, merely an equivalent for " Thorah,"
the emphatic teaching or instruction, the authoritative guide
in religion and morals. The term was applied, however, to
the whole collection of the Hebrews' sacred books, and ex
tended also to the Apocrypha of the Old Testament by some
early Christian writers. The Hebrews always counted the
Apocrypha among D^JI^H DHDD, "outside books" (San
hedrin 1006), and no quotations from either, except from the
book of Ben Sirah, occur in the Talmud. The position of
Prophets and Hagiography in the Canon has been defined.
Although accepted as divine, yet they are {<ni!D'7J2'{<! " appen
dices or supplements," to the Canon or Thorah. We con
sider them canons with these restrictions, because such is
the common conception ofthe term.
2. The reason for classifying the sacred books besides
the Thorah, as the Hebrews always did, appears to be
chronological. They were canonized or edited for the use
and guidance of the people in different times. Joshua,
Judges, Samuel and Kings are called D'JJJ'N"! D*N'3J,
"Former Prophets," while Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and
Minor Prophets are called D?J"I^T^t D?^<?31 " Latter Proph
ets," although the prophecies proper are contained in the lat
ter collection, and Daniel is omitted altogether. So are
Lamentations, Ruth, Psalms, Proverbs, Song of Solomon and
Ecclesiastes. According to the chronological order of the
supposed origin of these books, they could not have been
classified as they are. The distinction between prophetical
books and others could not have guided them, as Former
Prophets contains only prophetical fragments, while Daniel
claims to be entirely prophetical. We are forced, therefore,

26 The First Canon.
to accept the theory that these traditional divisions of the
Canon had their origin in the relative chronological succes
sion of their canonization. Therefore, the historical books
canonized at an early date are called Former Prophets. The
whole of Prophets having been canonized prior to Hagiog
raphy, assumed a higher and holier character than the latter
in the estimation, tradition and veneration of the people,
upon which the Scribes based the dogma of its superiority.
It is, therefore, evident that the Thorah, occupying the high
est position in the people's estimation, tradition and venera
tion, must have been Canon in Israel long before the other
books of the Bible. We know to a certaintj'- that this was
the case in the time of Judah Maccabee, when the Scroll of
the Law was the only holy emblem of the Synagogue (I.
Maccabees iii. 47, 48) ; that the ofiicial translators of Ptolemy
Philadelphus were required to Grecise the Thorah only ; that
the Samaritans adopted only the Thorah and no other book
of the Hebrew Scriptures, and that Ezra and Nehemiah
placed the Thorah only before the assembled people on that
solemn occasion, and this only was accepted as the Canon.
(Nehemiah viii. and ix.) In the Temple of Jerusalem the
reading of sections from the Thorah only was part of the
divine service (MishniXh in Yoma), and the ofiicial correctors
of manuscripts in the Temple Azarah, as far as we know,
limited their labor to the Thorah chiefly or exclusively, for
which they were paid out of the tithe fund.
Besides all these points, it is a fact that every one of the
prophets points to the Thorah Canon, and none to the teach
ings of his predecessors as being of an equal authority, as
shall be proved hereafter.
3. The very first canon, for the existence of which we
possess documentary evidence, was that of the Patriarchs,
contained in Genesis, viz. : the Thorah of Adam, the Thorah
of Noah, the Thorah of Abraham and the other Patriarchs.*
Basing upon the Thorah of the Patriarchs and progressing
from the rules of conduct ordained for the individual and
family to those of a nation and nations, follows the second
* See Albo's Ikkarim, IIL 13, 14.

Pronaos to Holy Writ. 27
part of the first canon, viz. : (a) the Sinaic Thorah, con
tained originally in the rinin "ifiD " Book of the Cove
nant,"* now contained in Exodus and Leviticus ;f and (6)
D'JmD rVi\r\ the Thorah of (or for) the Priests, estabhsh-
ing the polity and ritual in harmony with the teachings of
the Thorah, now interconnected with the " Book of the
Covenant " in these three books of the Pentateuch. Basing
upon these two canons, reviewing, expounding and amend
ing, follows the fourth part of the first canon, viz. (c) : Jinn
nCQ the "Thorah of Moses,"| now contained chiefiy in
Deuteronomy, and parts of it also in Numbers. A fifth class
of writings entering into the composition of the Thorah as a
whole, and especially in Numbers, consists of the " Scrolls,"
also believed to be of Mosaic origin, mentioned in the Tal
mud, njDJ n'7JlO n'^JQ nnn the "Thorah was given (or
preserved) in various scrolls" (Guitin 60), for which also we
possess documentary evidence.
4. The following Mosaic scrolls are noticed particularly :
(a) The story and poems of Balaam (Numbers xxii. and
xxiii.), concerning which it is maintained in the Talmud
quoted above (Bab. B. 14, and Yerushalmi Sotah v. 6),
" Moses wrote five books of the Thorah, and then again he
*Exodus xxiv. 15; 2 Kings xxii., xxiii.; 2 Chronicles xxxiv.,
xxxv. tin regard to the contents of the Book of the Covenant, see
Mechilta in Bachodesh, section 3. One of the Tana'im (his name is
given differently here and in Yalkut) holds that it contained all from
Genesis i. to Exodus xxiv. Rabbi Jehudah, the Prince, holds it
contained the commandments only which were given to Adam, the
children of Noah, Abraham, in Egypt, at Marah, and the other com
mandments. Rabbi Ishmael holds it contained also Leviticus xxv.
and xxvi., as the first verse of xxv. and the last of xxvi. plainly
show. It appears most likely that originally Exodus xxiv. was the
end of the book, to which Moses later on added Leviticus xxv. and
xxvi. tSee 2 Kings xiv. 6; the quotation from n2??2 miH is from Deut.
xxiv. 16 ; 2 Kings xxi. 8 ; one Thorah is referred to in cri'lS and
then another in nsn ^-i2P D.niN ni!J It'X mmn Compare also
Deuteronomy xxxiii. 4 ; Joshua i. 7, 8 ; viii. 30 ; xi. 15.

28 The First Canon.
wrote the chapter on Balak and Balaam," and mentioned
again in Deuteronomy xxiii. 6; Joshua xxiv. 9, 10, and
Micah vi. 5, as a well-known fact.
(6) The Book of the Journeys. It is mentioned espe
cially that Moses also wrote by divine command the history
of the exode from Egypt and the sojourn of Israel in the
wilderness, as stated in plain terms. Numbers xxxiii. DHDl
?? ȣ) '?); D.l'yDD'? Dil'KlflQ HN H^D "And Moses wrote
their goings out according to their journeys at the command
of Jehovah." This document may have originally contained
the historical notes connected with these stations in the
wilderness, as is evident from verses 3-5 and perhaps also
various laws made known on such different occasion?, all of
which may have been afterward detached and placed else
where, as the plan of the whole book required.
(c) There is noticed in Numbers xxi. 14 fllOn'^D IfiD
" The Book of the Wars of Jehovah," and a passage is
quoted from it. This, critics maintain, must be a book older
than the Thorah. We maintain that no war of Jehovah
could have existed prior to Moses, and Moses was particu
larly commanded to write, or rather to start, such a book
right after the first war of Jehovah, which was waged against
Amalek, as recorded in Exodus xvii. 14.* " And Jehovah
said, write this as a memorial in the book," etc., which
could mean a special book only, a book for that purpose,
viz. : to record the Wars of Jehovah. It stands to reason
that Moses obeyed the divine command, consequently he
was the author of the Book of the Wars of Jehovah, as far as
his time was concerned.
(d) There existed another ancient book lE'M IflD " The
Book of Jashar," quoted in Joshua x. 12-13, and 2 Samuel ii.
17-27, which also appears to have been started by Moses, or
found by him among his people and continued ; as some of
the rabbis in the Talmud maintain that Jashar stands for
Jesharim, and it signifies the Book of the Righteous, viz. :
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. According to the extant quota-

* This is suggested by Abraham Ibn Ezra and Targum Yerush
almi to this verse.

Pronaos to Holy Writ. 29
tions from that book, it must have been a collection of the
people's didactic and epic poems, to which the song at the
Red Sea, beginning Oz Yashir, as does also the quotation in
Numbers (xxi. 17) and another in Joshua (x. 12), may have
given the name of Jashar. It is stated expressly (Deuter
onomy xxxi.) that God commanded Moses to write the last
song (Deuteronomy xxxii.), and that he did write it that
day. It seems to be reasonable to suppose that this and
other songs of Moses started the Book of Jashar as he did
the Book of Wars. D''^mf2n IIQN'' p ^7^? "Therefore the
Moshelim said," in Numbers xxi., being a poem, Moshelim sig
nifying " poets," as well as " rulers," and in that book
"mashal," in the case of Balaam I'^tJ'O N£J'*'l signifying
" poetry," it is very likely anyhow that the passage is a
quotation from the same Book of Jashar, whose authors
were called Moshelim.
(e) "The Book of Generations." rm'?in l£)D (See
Lekach Tob to Genesis v.) This book is mentioned first in
Genesis v., although neither the term writing nor book
occurs again in Genesis.* Genealogies reoccur in Exodus
and chiefiy in Numbers, called in later times tJTT'n IfiD
(Nehemiah vii. 5), and must of necessity always have been
kept among the ancient Hebrews, as all titles to landed
property and most important political rights depended on
the individual's authentic family and tribal records. This
term IfiD could have been added at that particular place
only to inform us that the Israelites, prior to Moses, possessed
a written genealogy reaching back to Adam, or that MoseS'
started also this official book ; anyhow, it is of Mosaic or
pre-Mosaic origin, as are other documents accepted into
Genesis. From time to time important national matter may have
been added to these various scrolls or books. Moses may
have entered into the Book of the Covenant in his last days,
the Covenant in the Plain of Moab (Deuteronomy xxviii.),
or it may have been a separate scroll added to Deuteronomy
afterward. Joshua may have entered his covenant with
* Except in the case of the Egyptian D"')2U"in. Genesis xli. 8.

30 The First Canon.
Israel at Shechem in this scroll or book, as is mentioned
especially (Joshua xxiv. 26) 0*131.1 DK V'^^TV DnOl
D'il'^K nyWi 15D3 n'7J<n "And Joshua wrote these words
in the Book of the Thorah of Elohim," not in the Thorah of
Moses, as usual in this book. Samuel may have entered his
constitution of royalty in the same book, as it is stated there
(1 Samuel x. 25): liDDl nJlDl "He wrote (it) in the
book," and not in a book, as this was also a covenant, viz. :
with royalty. So likewise all the wars of Joshua and after
him, down perhaps to Samuel, may have been recorded in
the Book of Wars, and all national hymns, like that of
Deborah, and David's song, Kesheth, perhaps many now
incorporated in the Book of Psalms, like Psalm cxiv., may
have been entered in the Book of Jashar, as these were the
official records of the nation started by Moses. Other
special laws of Moses and records of his time, like the
description of the tabernacle and its furniture, the appoint
ment and functions of the Levitical priesthood, the particu
lars about the sacrificial polity, may just as well have existed
in difierent smaller scrolls from the hands of Moses.
5. Deuteronomy was originally written and delivered by
Moses to the priests and all the elders of Israel (Deuter.
xxxi. 9). It was intended to be the popular canon in the
hands of all who could read ; to be read publicly at stated
times (ibid. 10-13 ; 2 Chronicles, xvii. 7-9) ; to be the text
book for the young (Deuter. vi. 7; xi. 18, 19) ; to be copied
by the king and to be continually before his eyes (ibid. xvii.
18, 19; 1 Kings ii. 3; Psalms i. 2); to be written on the
twelve stones taken out of the Jordan* (Deuter. xxvii. 1-8;
Joshua viii. 30-35). This Thorah of Moses was never for
gotten and never set aside in Israel, not even in times of
prevailing Pagan corruption, also not in the kingdom of
Israel, and was always read at stated times in the temple as
late even as in the time of Agrippa I. (Mishnah in Sotah
vii. 7.)
*Only that portion, perhaps, which is contained in Deuteronomy
xxvii. and xxviii., as appears from Joshua viii. 14, where nSlin
nSTipm is mentioned with particular stress in explanation of HX
n-nnn '^2-1 1)3.

Pronaos to Holy Writ. 31
^ The assumed difference of diction which critics suppose to
distinguish Deuteronomy and characterize it as a work of
later origin than the former books of the Thorah, is imaginary
only. The laws in Deuteronomy differ in nowise from those
in the former books. Wherever any former law is repeated,
it is amended with some additional provision, as Rabbi
Ishmael has put down in the Talmud (Sotah 3a) as a
hermeneutic maxim. The speeches and prophecies of Mo
ses differ from his juridical diction, as the orator's style
must, but they differ not from his previous rhetorical pas
sages, as for instance, Exodus xxxii. to xxxiv., Leviticus
xxvi., and especially Numbers after chapter xx. The last
Song of Moses differs from the first as the rigid moralist's
didactic poem differs from his triumphal lyric effusion. But
suppose there was such a difference, it must be admitted
that forty years' literary and oratorical practice changes the
diction of every man of genius. Besides all that the critics
possess no reliable standard by which to fix the age of any
portion in the ancient classical Hebrew.
6. Being once admitted that Moses was the author of the
Book of the Covenant, the various scrolls mentioned, and
Book of Deuteronomy, it must also be admitted that he was
the author of the Book of Genesis, for (a) it is no more and
no less than a historical introduction to the Mosaic Scrip
tures, as the first eleven chapters are the introduction to the
history of the patriarchs. It establishes the main doctrines
of the Mosaic dispensation, such as God being supermun
dane. Creator, Preserver and Governor of the world, the
Providence, sovereign law-giver and supreme judge of man ;
man being the highest, spiritual, physical and God-like
being on earth, standing in perpetual connection with the
Deity by his understanding and conscience, if he obeys the
commandments of his Maker ; and especially the covenants
between God and Noah, God and Abraham, to be inherited
by their posterity. (6) The next object of Genesis is to
establish the title of the children of Israel to the land of
Canaan, which is the very foundation of the Mosaic policy.
(c) The whole plan of Genesis is to present the regular devel
opment and steady progress of the revelation of Deity in the

32 The First Canon.
human consciousness, and the consequent generation of the
ethical principles from the progressive cognition of God's
nature and will. None of the patriarchs is ethically as per
fect as Joseph, for he is the last in the upward scale of the
development, preceding the Mosaic dispensation, (d) With
out this introduction, this knowledge of preceding devel
opment, the doings and writings of Moses would appear an
unintelligible mystery, inexplicable and incomprehensible,
a state of culture and a stage of reason and ethics issuing
suddenly from dead rocks, and Moses would appear like a
wizard wrapped in the deceptive mantel of darkness, (e) In
all his writings Moses continually points back to the events,
doctrines and promises recorded in Genesis. It might be
maintained that somebody prior to Moses wrote the Book
of Genesis. This, however, is refuted by the constant use of
the tetragrammaton in the book, which, according to docu
mentary evidence, is of Mosaic origin (Exodus iii. and vi.
2-9). The portions of Genesis in which God is called Elo
him or El Shaddi are ancient documents, which its author
accepted and incorporated literally, but on no occasion omits
to state that Elohim or El Shaddi is identical with his
Jehovah, and does not signify any other Deity. Genesis, like
the whole of the Hebrew Bible, except some psalms between
Psalms xiii. and Ixxxiii., which are Elohistic, is entirely
Jehovistic, only the ancient documents are not ; hence Gene
sis could not have been written prior to Moses.* Again
Genesis contains a number of indications that it was written
outside of Palestine, by one who knew most about Egypt,
and for readers best acquainted with this country. Genesis
xxiii. the author finds it necessary to explain Kirjath Arba.
" This is Hebron in the land of Canaan," which he repeats
in verse 19 of the same chapter, and again in chapter xxxv.
verse 27, which only an author outside of Canaan could have
written. This is also the case in Numbers xiii. 22, where
*This, of course, is to maintain that the various hypotheses of
fragments from different authors, distinguished by different names
of the Deity employed by them, called Jahvistic and Elohistic
writers, is, aside of the Elohistic portions mentioned above, entirely
false. The Elohistic Psalms will be noticed under Psalms.

Pronaos to Holy Writ. 33
Hebron is again referred to as having been built seven years
prior to Zoan of Egypt. The land between the Euphrates
and the Isthmus of Suez is called in Genesis the land of the
Eberites, or Hebrews. Abraham is called the Ibri (xiv. 13).
Joseph is called an Ibri man (xxxix. 14) ; tells of himself
that he was stolen from the land of the Ibrim (xl. 15), and
is called by the royal courtier an Ibri slave (xli. 12). So the
Ibrim are constantly mentioned as being called so by the
Egyptians. This was certainly not written in Canaan, nor
was it written east thereof, where the people west of the
Euphrates were called " Western " Arabi, Arabs.- The
Egyptians naturally changed the " Western " Arabi, Arbi, or
Erebi into Ebri or Ibri, the people or land " on the other
side " of the Isthmus. The term Ibri, or Hebrew, can be of
Egyptian origin only. The author of Genesis never explains
the names or offices of Egyptian persons, although they
have no equivalents among the Hebrews, as Pharaoh, Poti-
phar, the Sar Hat-Tabachim, Sar Ha-Ophim, Sar Ha-Mash-
kim, and the location or history of Egyptian places, as he
often very carefully does with names of places and persons
outside of Egypt; evidently because he wrote for a people
well acquainted with Egypt and Egyptian affairs. This is
evident from the entire history of Joseph and partly also
from the history of Abraham. These are points of circum
stantial evidence proving that Moses, after the exode and in
the wilderness, must have written the book of Genesis. If
there occur in it passages which seem to be of a later origin
than the time of Moses, they must be accounted for from
another standpoint than the Jahvistic, Elohistic fragment
hypothesis or any other theory which places not the author
ship of this book at any time after the death of Moses.
7. The Book of the Covenant and perhaps also all the
other Mosaic documents, called iltH illiriil 13D I Deuter.
xxxi. 26) and not flNtll (llinn (ibid, verse 12), as Deuter
onomy is called, was delivered to the Levites to be placed at
the side ofthe ark ofthe covenant ofthe Lord, as part of n)1^
" The testimony " upon which the whole of Deuteronomy is
based, and to which it constantly refers, and not in the

34 The First Canon.
hands of all the Levites and Elders; hence it could be
known *ind examined by the expounders of the law and the
priests, but not also by the whole people (Deut. xxxi. 24-26).
It is quite natural, therefore, that the earliest prophets
whose books we possess, like Joel, Amos and Hosea, arguing
against the corruption of religion and law in the kingdom
of Israel, spoke and wrote in the style of Deuteronomy, and
referred to it most frequently ; it was the canon of the peo
ple, and known as such to everybody, while the other por
tions of the first canon — perhaps Genesis excepted — could
not have been known so popularly.*
8. Documentary evidence not merely entitles but compels
us to maintain that all these manuscript scrolls, preserved
and zealously guarded in the national sanctuary, may have
been connected with the Mosaic books of Genesis, Covenant,
Leviticus and Deuteronomy, and shaped in the present form
ofthe Five Books of Moses, if not Moses himself performed
this task in the last days of his life ; and that material
which, after Moses, was added to any of those books or
scrolls was incorporated in the later books of Joshua and
Judges, although some of it may have been retained in the

*It seems that Xipo Nip, in Isaiah i. 13, does not refer to tC^pO
tJ'TljJ in the Thorah, because in the next verse Isaiah calls the holy
days D3""IJJ1D, and so or DVn the prophets usually call the feasts or
dained in the Thorah ; none refer to them as NlpD Nip. Nor is this
phrase in this sense found anywhere in the New Hebrew. It appears
that it must be understood literally " Reading Scripture ; " in this
sense only the term Nlpa went down into the New Hebrew. Isaiah
referred to the then already prevailing custom of reading canonical
Scripture as part of the divine service of Sabbath and New Moon.
That he had in this chapter the last song of Moses before his eyes
is evident from lyotj* and irtNn in verses 2 and 10, and in the pre
vious chapter (Deut. xxxi. 11) he saw the commandment of " To read
this law," which according to verse 9, refers to Deuteronomy. This
is also evident from Isaiah Ixvi., which is chiefly an imitation of
Isaiah i. ; and there, verse 21, occurs the phrase D^lbn D'jriDn, which
is taken from Deuteronomy. It appears, therefore, that Deuter
onomy chiefly was read as part of the devotional exercises on Sab
bath and New Moon.

Pronaos to Holy Writ. 35
Pentateuch, as for instance Genesis xiv. 14, xxxvi. 31 ; * Exo
dus xvi. 35, 36 ; Leviticus xxi. ; Numbers xiii. 24, xxi. 3, 25,
xxxii. 34-42 ; Deuteronomy xxxiv. Unless it be maintained
that such anachronistic passages came in the Thorah as
marginal notes first, which transcribers erroneously incorpo
rated into the text, for which we possess no proof whatever.
This must have been done at an early date of Israel's his
tory, long before the first books of the Prophetical Canon
were recognized as holy Scriptures. Still, whenever this was
done, there exists no reason to suppose that the compilers of
the Mosaic Canon accepted anything into it which they did
not verily believe to have come from the hands of Moses or
his immediate disciples. We have no right to suspect fraud
or imposition where the object of any book is the highest
good of mankind, which is the case with the Pentateuch,
unless forced to do so by the undoubted dicta of reason. It
is a self-contradictory assumption, that any man or any
body of men whose sole object is truth and righteousness
should resort to fraudulent means to reach his or their aim.
The so-called pious fraud is not applicable to such stern
preachers of righteousness as Israel's prophets were. In
order, however, to approach argumentatively the time when
the Pentateuch received its present form, we must first ascer
tain when the books of the Prophetical Canon were written,
and when they were considered Holy Writ. This is attempted
in the next chapter.
*Itis possible enough that this passage was written by Moses,
and the eight kings of Edom, all foreigners — no Edomites reigned in
the land of Edom before the sons of Esau — assumed the reins of
government in that country and before the Israelites had an organ
ized government, i. e., in the time of Moses. The Melech in this
passage, as in Deuteronomy xxxiii. 15, refers to Moses (Sepumo).

CHAPTER III.
the former prophets.
THE eight books of the Prophetical Canon, viz. : Joshua,
Judges, Samuel, Kings, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and
Minor Prophets, were esteemed among the ancient Israelites
of equal holiness, inferior only to the Thorah, at as early
a date, indeed, as the reading of holy Scriptures besides
the Thorah, as part of the divine service, was introduced in
the synagogues and academies. According to most ancient
regulations prescribed sections from any of these books
were read in conclusion of the morning service of every
Sabbath, biblical holy day, the ninth day of the month of
Ab, and in conclusion of the afternoon service of any public
day of fast. Passages from the Prophetical Canon only and
not also from Hagiography were prescribed to this end.
But it made no difference from which of the eight propheti
cal books such selections were made, which certainly shows
that they were esteemed of equal holiness. And yet the
four books called the Former Prophets, because they are
called so must have been esteemed Holy Writ prior to the
four called Latter Prophets. This point deserves particular
attention, especially as radical criticisms, in order to bring
down the origin of the Pentateuch to a comparatively recent
date, entirely misconstrue these historical books.
2. Outside of the Bible we possess but one document on
the dates, when, and the authors by whom the various books
of the Bible were written, and this is the record of ancient
tradition in the Talmud, Baba Bathra, lib and 15a, which,
literally rendered, reads thus :
" Moses wrote his own book, the section of Balaam, and the
Book of Job. The latter is contradicted by various teachers,
and finally by the principal Massorites of Tiberias, Rabbis
Jochanan and Eleazar, who maintain rr^Il il'^IJl ^'7)i?D 5VN

Pronaos to Holy Writ. 37
" Job was among those who returned from the Babylonian
captivity," as appears also from Job xiii. 10, and from its
position in the third Canon.
" Joshua wrote his own book and the last eight verses in
the Thorah." This is amended on the next page in the Tal
mud to the effect that the last verses of Joshua were written
partly by Eleazar and partly by Phineas, the high priests.
" Samuel wrote his own book, also Judges and Ruth ; "
which is amended on the next page of the Talmud to the
effect that the Prophets Nathan and Gad wrote parts of the
book Samuel, as stated expressly in 1 Chronicles xxix. 29.
" David wrote a book of Psalms, in which he incorporated
the psalms of ten older authors.
"Jeremiah wrote his own book. Kings and Lamenta
tions. "Hezekiah, the king, and his associates wrote Isaiah,
Proverbs (see Proverbs xxv. 1), Song of Solomon and Ec
clesiastes. " The Men of the Great Synod wrote Ezekiel, Twelve Minor
Prophets, Daniel and Esther."
" Ezra wrote his own book (including Nehemiah) and the
genealogies of Chronicles up to himself D*t3M '131 '7^ DH*
t> 11^" (see Rashi).
It must be understood that 3D3 or l^ilD, " he wrote or
they wrote," in this or other Talmudical passages, does not
always refer to authorship ; it refers, also, to the editorship,
the parties that collected and compiled the manuscripts of
any author.
3. It is evident from the books of "Wars of Jehovah,"
"Sojourns," "Genealogies," and "Jashar or Moshelim,"
that official and cotemporary chronography was one of the
public institutions in Israel. This appears also from Joshua
and Samuel, of whom it is reported that they wrote into
such existing books, and from the above Talmudical tradi
tion, which admits that Joshua wrote into the Thorah (see
also Ramban's commentary to Numbers xxi. 1), and that
the two high priests added to the records of Joshua. No
such ofl&cial records are mentioned in the period of the
Judges, although frequent references to them occur in the

38 The Former Prophets.
Book of Judges (v. 4, 5 ; vi. 7-10 ; xi. 14-27). Still, in that
very ancient song of Deborah (chapter v.), a host of en
gravers of the law on stone or metal, D'pplllO, presiding
judges, piO bv D'DC^V, and expert scribes, L33JJ'3 D'DtJ'10
IfilD, are expressly mentioned,* so that cotemporary chro
nography also in that period can hardly be doubted, espe
cially as the variety of styles in the diff'erent accounts in the
book point distinctly to various larger chronicles from which
the narratives were epitomized.
From and after King David the Scribe (IflID) and Chro-
nographer (l^DfD) or Chancellor were members of the
royal council. Solomon had even two scribes (1 Kings iv.
3), and that official is there yet in the time of Jeremiah
(xxxvi. 9, 12 ; lii. 25), to the very end ofthe two kingdoms.
Both the chronicles, and in many instances also the chro-
nographers are mentioned. In the Book of Kings only three
such official and cotemporary chronicles are referred to, to
the very end of the book, viz. : " The Book of the Words of
Solomon " (1 Kings xi. 41) ; " The Book of the Chronicles of
the Kings of Israel" (ibid. xiv. 15 ; xv. 31), and " The Book
of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah " (ibid. 1 xiv. 18).
In Chronicles the two latter sources are referred to (1
Chronicles ix. 1 and 2 Chronicles xxxvi. 8), that is up to
King Joiakim, exactly as the author of Kings does, to which
he also refers in the terms " The Book of the Kings of Judah
and Israel" (2 Chronicles xvi. 11), also in the terms IfiD
D^D'^DH and calls it (xxvi. 27) " A Midrash of the Book of
Kings." f Besides which the author of Chronicles refers to
the books of prophets who wrote the cotemporary history
of certain kings. He mentions Samuel, Nathan and Gad as
writers of the history of David (1 Chronicles xxix. 29) ;
Nathan, Abiah Hashiloni and Eddi having written the his
tory of Solomon, (2 Chronicles xi. 29) ; Shemaiah and
* Also 1 Chronicles ii. 55. J'ajJ^ UBT DnSID nriEJB'DI
t It is evident that Midrash refers to the Synopsis and not to the
primary sources, in this case to our Book of Kings, as in the place
referred to and beginning of next chapter, the author of Chronicles
copies literally from 2 Kings xii. 20 and xiv. 1-7.

Pronaos to Holy Writ. 39
Eddo— the latter perhaps identical with Eddi — having writ
ten the history of Rehabeam (ibid. xii. 15) ; the same Eddo
wrote also the history of Abiah, the son and successor of
Rehabeam, in a separate book called " Midrash Eddo."
The history of the other kings was not preserved in separate
books known to the author of Chronicles ; it was recorded
in the official chronicles by cotemporary prophets, as special
inention is made of Jehu, son of Hanani, who inscribed from
his own book the history of King Jehoshaphat in the offi
cial chronicle (2 Chronicles xx. 34), and the prophet Isaiah
wrote the history of Uziah in the same manner (2 Chronicles
xxvi. 22), and the history of Hezekiah, in the Book of Isaiah,
then called pQX ]2 lil'i^JJ" ptl according to the four
words at the head of this book, and also in the official
chronicle (ibid, xxxii. 32). The history of King Menasseh
was written by various prophets, one of whom, called Hozai,
is mentioned in Chronicles xxxih. 19. All these historical
sources must have been extant to the end of the fourth cen
tury B. C, as the author of Chronicles makes copious
abstracts from them, including many names and sayings of
prophets and other prominent persons not mentioned in the
preceding historical books, as for instance in the genealogies
up to chapter ix. and the various historical notes connected
with them, all of which he states (ix. 1) " are written in the
Book of Kings of Israel and Judah." So the same author
continually refers to books from which he copies, and not to
mere traditions or opinions. The institution of cotemporary
official chronography, it appears from the closing passage
of 1 Maccabees, was permanent in Israel, and was there yet
in the time of John Hyrcan, whose official day book is men
tioned there.
4. The historical books of the Bible are synopses from
official and cotemporary records in some instances, or a
connection of some books into one — as is the case with
Joshua and Samuel — from cotemporary writers. They were
not re-written or corrected by any one man or any set of
men at any time. Aside of some errors which might have
crept in by copyists during thousands of years, they are be-

40 The Former Prophets.
fore us to-day exactly and literally as they came from the
hands of their respective authors, and furnish us with the
consecutive history of the Israelites from 1450 to 585 B. C,
as complete and truthful as no other people of that millen-
ium has left a record. Each book continues the history
from the end of the former, and each author evinces a full
knowledge of his predecessors. All of them have in common
the aim and object which is not only to write history, but to
produce the historical evidence in support of the fact, that
Israel's life, prosperity and success depended on its adhe
rence to the divine covenant and obedience to its laws and
teachings, and all national miseries and failures down to the
destruction of Jerusalem and the Babylonian exile resulted
from disobedience, desertion and rebellion. Therefore they
are both popular text-books of history and divine canons.
•Each of these books is different from the others in diction,
plan and terminology, consequently no one person could
have been the author of any two of them. Each has its
own exceptions from the rules of grammar and peculiarities
of construction; hence none was re-written by critics or
literary editors, none went through the hands of a corrector.
These books are before us in their antique originality. Had
they been revised at any time they would be uniform, correct
and smooth. Had they been written or re-written at any
time by any one man or any one body of men, they could
not differ so entirely in plan as Judges does from Joshua
and Kings from Samuel, which are as different as is the
synoptic from chronographer.
5. Joshua contains three different elements from three
different records : (o) The original records of Joshua,
added by him to the various public records established by
Moses; (6) the geographical and topographical records
referring to the conquest and division of the land (Joshua
xii.-xxi.), which could not have been written at any later
date, as the whole claim of the families to certain lands
always depended on it; and (c) the Book Jashar quoted in
Joshua X. 12-14 as the source for the miracle of sun and
moon standing still. The book as now before us was cer-

Pronaos to Holy Writ. 41
tainly not compiled or edited by Joshua, nor was the author
of the Joshua records different from him who wrote the last
chapter of Deuteronomy, as a cursory inspection of this and
Joshua i. sufficiently proves.
It is certain that Joshua is older than Judges, which is
chronologically a continuation of the former. The last words
of Joshua are quoted in Judges (ii. 6-9), and the beginning
of this chapter is in substance from Joshua xxiii., as the
notice from Caleb taking Hebron (Judges i. 10-15) is from
Joshua xiv., xv. 13-19.
6. The Book of Joshua is before us in twenty-four chap
ters (modern division), fourteen Sedarim (ancient division),
656 verses, the middle of which is xiii. 26. Its contents are :
Chapter i. God's charges to Joshua and to his people.
Chapter ii. Sending and returning of the spies from Jeri
cho. The story of Rahab.
Chapters in. and iv. Marching from the camp east of the
Jordan, crossing that river, and erecting the twelve stones
taken from its bottom at the west side thereof
Chapter v. Circumcision and the Passover at Gilgal, and
the vision of Joshua.
Chapter vi. Capture of Jericho.
Chapter vii. Reverse before the City of Ai ; crime and
punishment of Achan.
Chapter viii. Capture of Ai, erection of the altar, writing
the law upon the stones, and pronouncing the blessings and
the curses on Mounts Gerizim and Ebal.
Chapter ix. The Gibeonites and the covenant with them.
Chapter x. War and victory over Adoni Zedek and four
other kings ; sun and moon standing still.
Chapter xi. Jabin, King of Hazar, and other kings de
feated in battle and slain.
Chapter xii. Renumeration of Joshua's victories.
Chapter xiii. to xxi. Division of the land among the
tribes, and appointing cities of refuge.
Chapter xxii. The two and a half tribes dismissed to
their homes beyond Jordan, the altar they erected, and the
controversy to which it led.

42 The Former Prophets.
Chapters xxiii. and xxiv. Public meetings, addresses of
Joshua, reaffirmation of the covenant, death and burial of
Joshua and Eleazar the high priest.
According to tradition, the wars of Joshua lasted seven
years, the division of the land and taking possession thereof,
also took seven vears. Then the Mosaic law was put in
force and the tabernacle erected in Shiloh.
Diction and phraseology of this book are similar to that
of Moses, although less nervous. It is without documentary
evidence to speak of a Hexateuch instead of a Pentateuch ;
and linguistically, there is no more similarity between
Joshua and Pentateuch than what is ordinarily the case in
the writings of a weaker disciple comparing to those of his
original and more powerful master.
In order to approximate the time when the Book of Joshua
was written, we must ascertain first when Judges was writ
ten. Therefore, we turn now to the second book of the
prophetical canon.
7. The Book of Judges is before us in twenty-one chap
ters (modern division), fourteen Sedarim (ancient division),
618 verses, half of which is x. 8. Its contents are : After
the introduction (see above), the book begins iii. 7, with the
exploits of Othniel ben Kenaz and his successors, Ehud ben
Gera and Shamgar ben Anoth, the three judges following
Joshua. Chapter iv. Contains the story of Deborah and Barak.
Chapter v. The song of Deborah.
Chapter vi. to viii. Is the record of the Gideon period.
Chapter ix. Contains the story of the usurper, Abime-
lech, and the parable of Jotham.
Chapter x. Opens with a mere mention of two succeeding
Judges, Thola and Jair, and closes with reports of prevailing
corruption and invasion, leading to the appointment of Jeph-
thah. Chapters xi. and xii. Is the record of Jephthah, with the
story of his daughter, closing chapter xii. with a mere men
tion of the three succeeding Judges, Abzon (said to be the
Boaz in Ruth), Ailon and Abdon.
Chapter xiii, to xviii. Is the record of the Samson period.

Pronaos to Holy Writ. 43
From chapter xvii. to the end of the book two stories are
appended, to which there is no reference made in the body of
the book, although they narrate incidents which are sup
posed to have ocaurred at the very beginning of that period,
when Phineas was high priest, and differ radically in spirit,
phraseology, tone and object from the body of the book.
No reader can help seeing that these two appendices are
later productions, and were added for a purpose to the Book
of Judges.
The author of Judges mentions neither Eli nor Samuel,
although they were the very men he must have glorified,
according to the plan of his book, if there existed no par
ticular reason for ignoring them.
8. The author of Judges is an outspoken monotheistic,
theocratic patriot. He evidently transcribed his narratives
from the Book of Wars of Jehovah, where cotemporaries of
the respective events recorded them. Therefore he has no
records from the long intervals of peace and evident pros
perity. He claims that all national misfortunes and miser
ies were divine retributions for Israel's abandonment of the
true God and adopting pagan cults ; and that salvation
from misery was always effected by Judges who were faith
ful to God and succeeded in reforming the people ; and this
is the tendency and purpose of the entire book. He is the
stern theocratic democrat. He dwells with special delight on
Deborah on account of her brilliant genius and God-inspired
patriotism. Gideon, Jephthah and Samson, heroic men of
the people, true to Israel's cause, are his central figures,
while he barely mentions the names of most of the Judges,
and has more to say of the filial devotion of Jephthah's
daughter than of the judges governing forty-five years prior
to Jephthah. He literally pours out his abhorrence of the
monarchical, anti-theocratic institution in narrating the
story of the first usurper, Abimelech, the son of Gideon, and
a concubine, who is the first fratricide after Cain, in sacred
history, much more criminal than Adam's first-born. His
supporters and partisans are paganized rebels. The treas
ures in support of his cause are taken from the temple of
Baal. He is the first bloodthirsty despot in Israel's history ;

44 The Former Prophets.
within three years of his reign he slays thousands of his
followers, to be himself slain at last at the hands of a woman.
None of the reigning judges is blamed by the author.
Throughout the book the theocratic democrat, the invincible
man of righteousness, speaks the blunt and stern language
of a heroic age.
9. Entirely different are the language and tendency of the
two appendices, evidently written by another author. He is
no synoptic. He writes extensive stories containing many
particulars of single events. He evinces his animosity to
the democratic form of government by saying four times :
" In those days there was no king in Israel," to which he
adds twice : " Every man did what seemed right in his sight,"
which is to say, then confusion and anarchy reigned. With
undisturbed equanimity and without a word of blame, he
tells the story of Michah's idol, how the Danites stole it and
its priest and worshiped it all the time that the tabernacle
was at Shiloh. He is evidently not the same man who wrote
the main portion of Judges.
The second story, about the concubine slain at Gibeah
and the subsequent murderous execution of justice on the
tribe of Benjamin, fully betrays the intention of the author.
Besides his anti-democratic sentiments, which he makes the
groundwork of both stories, he makes out a case of what
happened in Gibeah so similar to that of Sodom, when the
angels had come to Lot, that the story borrows both the inci
dents and phrases from that part of Genesis (Judges xix.
8-27). Then his evident intention is to bestow as much
praise as the situation would afford on Levy, Judah and
Ephraim, and as much blame and disgrace as could be
afforded on the tribe of Benjamin and the men of Jabesh
Gilead (ibid. xxi. 5-12). Their crime was that of Sodom,
their punishment and degradation were complete ; a mere
remnant of them was permitted to live by the grace and
mercy of the people, and even those had to steal women and
take them for wives. This story has certainly not the same
author who incorporated in his narratives the words of
Deborah, "After thee, Benjamin, among thy people " (Judges
V. 14). Another remarkable point is that the Book of

Pronaos to Holy Writ. 45
Judges has no mention whatever of any high priest or Levite,
while in this appendix we meet again the Levite and the
high priest Phineas (xx. 28).
There exists internal evidence in Judges to the effect that
the body of the book is older than the appendices. In Judges
i. 20 we read, " And the Jebusite dwelt with the children of
Benjamin in Jerusalem Hfll DIM IJ/ to this very day,"
which must have been prior to the reign of David. In one of
the appendices (ibid, xviii. 31) we read that the Danites wor
shiped the idol of Michah, as long as the house of God was
in Shiloh, as a reminiscence, of days past, and not DIM IJ?
nm consequently the second event transpired long after the
first, and the writers so dated it. Again, as the song of
Deborah bears testimony to the Sinaic revelation, the tribal
divisions and the state of culture in her days, and Jephthah
in his message to the King of Ammon (Judges xi. 12-28)
bears testimony to the events in the last year of Moses, so
Samuel (1 Sam. xii. 8-11) and the author of Psalms Ixxxiii.*
confirms the stories narrated in Judges. But the stories
narrated in the two appendices are not as much as referred
to any more anywhere in the Bible.
These appendices must have been written at a time when
it was deemed necessary to denounce the democratic form
of government, the tribe of Benjamin and the city of Jabesh
Gilead, to laud the monarchical institution and to compli
ment the tribes of Levi, Judah and Ephraim. This concur
rence of events happened at no time in Israel except during
the reign of King David. Then the theocratic democracy
was yet strong in number and dissatisfisd, as is evident
from the revolutions under Absalom and Sheba ben Bichri ;
Benjamin was David's enemy ; Jabesh Gilead was loyal to
Saul ; Levy, Judah and Ephraim were David's strongholds.
There can be no reasonable doubt as to the time when those
appendices were written, nor as to the reason why they were
* This Psalm could have been written only in the earlier time of
David's reign, as is evident from the names of the hostile nations
mentioned therein. Compare 1 Samuel viii. 1WX D3 in verse 9 of
that Psalm refers to Aram Zobah, which was under Assyrian
dominion then, and must have been assisted by Assyrians.

46 The Former Prophets.
attached to the Book of Judges, which is the very glorifica
tion of theocratic democracy, credits Benjamin with one of
the earliest saviors of Israel (Judges iii. 15), and records the
words of Deborah, yt2DV^ pO'JD ^IPTN
10. It is easily understood why the tradition makes Sam
uel the author of Judges. The book was written for the peo
ple, to whom the official chronicles were inaccessible, by an
uncompromising and zealous advocate of the theocratic
democracy, an implacable opponent of the pagan corrup
tions, monarchy and the priesthood, with the avowed inten
tion to convince the masses of the real cause of all national
miseries, and to uphold and maintain in their original purity
the theocracy and the covenant.
This man could have been Samuel only ; there is no other
known in history. He was the reformer of his people, with
him idolatry vanished out of Israel for a century. He was
the last pillar of theocracy and opponent of monarchy to the
very end. He was the opponent of priesthood and almost
overthrew it, to which he was forced by the demoralization
of the sons of Eli, and the fact that the first royalist rebels
were chiefiy Levites, as the city of Sichem belonged to the
Levites of the family of Kehath (Joshua x:?;i. 21).' His hand
is visible throughout the book. The authority of the pro
phet made the book a popular oracle. It was canon as
soon as it had reached the people (1 Samuel iii. 20). There
fore when royalty struggled against democracy, as was the
case in the time of David, it was necessary to neutralize the
effect of that book, which was attempted by the addition of
that appendix.*
The book presents also an argument e silentio in favor of,
the authorship of the prophet Samuel, being written in the
lifetime of the high priest Eli. It closes with the death of
* This Dan, the name which the Danites gave to the city of Laish,
in the northwest of Palestine, in the valley of Beth Rahab, not far
from Zidon (Judges xviii. 28), ia not identical with the Danin Gene
sis xiv. 14 and Deuteronomy xxxiv. 1, which is the name of a moun
tain range in the northeast of Palestine, at the head of Gilead, near
Hobah, west" of Damascus.

Pronaos to Holy Writ. 47
Samson, mentions neither Eli nor Samuel, with whom the
period of the Judges closes, although the author records
every name of the Judges from Joshua to Samson. Had the
book been written or transcribed by a later author, he must
certainly have closed it with some account of the two last
Judges in Israel. If Samuel was its author he must have
written it during the lifetime of Eli, whose administration
being not matter of history yet. The same kind of argu
ment points to the high priest Phineas as the compiler of the
Book of Joshua in its present form. The book closes with
the account of the death and burial of Joshua and Eleazar
the high priest, makes no mention of Phineas, although he
was acting high priest, at least in the latter days of Joshua
(Joshua xxii. 13). Had the book been Written, re-written
or compiled by any later author, he must certainly have
added some account of the third high priest in Israel.
11. Joshua having undoubtedly been written prior to
Judges, it was certainly compiled and finished in its present
form in the period between Joshua and Samuel. Its diction
points to a disciple of Moses, and this could well have been
Phineas, the high priest, of whom the tradition admits that
he wrote the close of the book. There is no established rule
in the canon of Biblical criticism to set aside the facts that
Phineas was the last editor of Joshua, that Samuel wrote
Judges, and an anonymous author in the Davidian time
wrote the appendix with the avowed intention of counteract
ing among the people the democratic tendencies of the book,
the prevailing sympathies for the tribe of Benjamin and the
inhabitants of Jabesh Gilead.*
All this, however, does not prove that Joshua was not the
author of the material compiled in the book. The whole
record of the conquest of Canaan must have been inscribed
in the national records, called " The Book of the Wars of
Jehovah" (see page 28). The last speeches of Joshua were
certainly added to the " Book of the Covenant" as main-

* See the author's History of the Israelitish Nation, Appendix to
Period II., "Literature," Albany, 1854.

48 The Former Prophets.
tained in the book (xxiv. 26). The quotation from the Book
of Jashar is marked (x. 12--14). The topographic portion
was written by the men appointed by Joshua at Shiloh
(xviii. 8, 9) and must have originally been added to the
national records in the Book of " Sojourns." All this ma
terial was taken from the original records and compiled into
the one Book of Joshua. Some notes and explanatory
remarks of the compiler may have been added, but there
exists no evidence whatever that the original material had
been changed or interpolated, nor does any rational ground
exist to suspect the compiler's stern honesty and veracity.
We may, therefore, fix the following dates :
Joshua was written by him and his scribes, and compiled
in its present form by the high priest Phineas 1400 B. C.
Judges, being an abstract and epitome from the national
records, was written in its present form by the prophet Sam
uel 1075 B. C.
The appendices to the Book of Judges were written —
author unknown — 1025 B. C.
With the authentication of these two books we gain one
more argument, and a very important one, in favor of the
authenticity of the Pentateuch and its Mosaic origin. We
also have an intimation, when the original material was
placed in its present form, viz. : when the post-Mosaic
material was separated from the Mosaic records; hence
either in the time of Phineas or of Samuel. The former
seems most likely, for the latter the evidence of history,
especially of literature, speaks most distinctly, as we shall
ascertain later on.
12. Joshua in its first verse announces itself as the con
tinuation of Deuteronomy. Judges in its first verse an
nounces itself as the continuation of Joshua. With Samuel
begins a new book, in style diff'erent from Deuteronomy,
and in plan and design diff'erent from the synoptic Judges,
which resembles the first sixteen chapters of SamueLin the
one point, that the same theocratic-democratic spirit, the
same opposition to king and priest, characterizes both of
them. This outspoken tendency of the two books is suffi-

Pronaos to Holy Writ. 49
cient evidence that they were not written in the time of the
kings and hereditary high priests.*
13. The Book of Samuel is before us in 30 and 24 chapters
(modern division), 34 Sedarim (ancient division), 1,506
verses, the middle of which is 1 Samuel xxviii. 24. It begins
with the narrative of the parents of Samuel coming from
their home to Shiloh to sacrifice there.
Chapter ii. begins with the prayer of Hannah and the his
tory of Samuel at Shiloh, in connection with the high priest,
Eli, and his two sons.
Chapter in. contains the first prophecy of Samuel and its
delivery to Eli.
Chapter in. contains the narrative of the war of the Philis
tines upon Israel, the defeat of the latter, capture of the ark,
death of the two sons of Eli, and of Eli himself.
Chapters v. and vi. describe the plagues which came on
the Philistines on account of the ark, and how they returned
it with gifts and sacrifices, resulting in the death of 50,000
( ?) of the men of Beth Shemesh.
Chapter vn. narrates how after the ark had been twenty
years at Kiriath Jearim, the people reformed ; Samuel prays
* The author of Samuel certainly understood the Levitical laws of
Moses to the effect that the priesthood belonged to the tribe of Levi,
one of them to be high priest and he to be assisted by his sons, as
ia expressly stated in Deuteronomy xxxiii. In Deuteronomy occurs
always the phrase, "The Priests-Levites," as also in Isaiah Ixvi.
In Leviticus it ia " Aaron and his sons," and not their descendants,
to whom the priesthood is given. When this dignity was conferred
on Phineas, the grandson of Aaron, it was for special cause, as
narrated in Numbers xxv. 10, and not as a birthright. When, after
Phineas, again a high priest is mentioned, it is Eli and his two sons
and no other priest, and it ia not certain even that Eli was a descend
ant of Aaron, although the custom may have in after times become
law, that the sons of Aaron only should be priesta and the high-
priesthood be hereditary in one family, as was the case from and
after King Solomon to the time of the Maccabees. It does not seem
to be so ordained in the Levitical laws of Moses, and Samuel, who
was a Levite, did perform priestly functions (1 Samuel vii. 9; x. 8;
xi. 15).

50 The Former Prophets.
for them at Mizpah, leads them in battle against the Philis
tines and subdues them, and he becomes the judge of the
people. Chapter viii. The people want a king ; Samuel's opposi
tion and his warning.
Chapter ix. Beginning of Saul's history, and
Chapter x. he is anointed King of Israel and is accepted
among the sons of the prophets ; Samuel writes the royal
constitution in one of the national records.
Chapter xi. Nahash, the Ammonite, invades Gilead and
besieges the city of Jabesh. Saul comes to its assistance,
defeats the besiegers and liberates the city, which causes
Samuel to call the people to Gilgal to renew the covenant
with royalty, to which strong opposition had been mani
fested. Chapter xii. Speech and miracle by Samuel at Gilgal.
Chapters xiii. and xiv. Valorous deeds of Saul and his
son, Jonathan, in the war against the Philistines with his
standing army of 3,000 men, during the second year of his
reign. Mistakes of Saul.
Chapter xv. Invasion and overthrow of Amalek. Sam
uel prophesies the mournful end of Saul and his house.
Chapter xvi. Samuel anoints secretly David, son of Jesse,
King of Israel. David at the court of Saul.
Chapter xvii. The Philistines again invade Palestine.
Goliath slain by David, which ends the campaign.
Chapter xviii. David returns to Saul's court, marries the
king's daughter and becomes the intimate friend of the
king's son, Jonathan.
Chapter xix. Saul attempts to slay David ; his wife saves
his life, and he seeks shelter with Samuel at Najoth. Saul
sends messengers there to capture him, and David returns
to Jonathan.
Chapter xx. Covenant of friendship between David and
Jonathan. Chapter xxi. David's flight to Nob, then to Achish, King
of Gath ;
Chapter xxii., and is finally compelled to seek refuge in

Pronaos to Holy Writ. 51
the cave of AduUam, where he becomes the chief of a band
of voluntary warriors.
Chapter xxiii. to xxvii. Various exploits of David, and
his persecution by Saul.
Chapters xxviii. and xxix. The ends of Saul and Jonathan
in another war with the Philistines, and last exploits of
David at Ziklag.
Second Samuel begins with the end of Saul and Jonathan,
account thereof being brought to David ; David's elegy,
Kesheth, Chapter ii. to iv. Narrates the end of the house of Saul
while David is King of Judah, in which are prominent Ish
Bosheth, son of Saul, and Abner, his chief captain, and Joab,
with his brother, Ashhael, on the side of David.
Chapter v. to xx. Contains the history of David as King
of all Israel.
Chapter xxi. is an appendix to this history.
Chapter xxii. contains the great hymn of David.
Chapters xxiii. and xxiv. contain a collection of fragments,
historical and poetical, appertaining to the history of David.
The history of David, closing abruptly in chapter xx. with
the end of the rebellion under Sheba, son of Bichri, is brought
to a close in 1 Kings chapters i. and ii. and is supplemented
in the Book of Chronicles.
14. There exists no tenable ground to contradict the tra
dition that Samuel wrote his book and the Book of Judges.
1 Samuel xvii. to 2 Samuel v. 3 is from the Book of Gad,
diflferent in style and tone from the genuine Samuel. Gad
followed David in his early exploits (1 Samuel xxii. 5), and
was undoubtedly the historian of that period in David's life.
2 Samuel v. 4 to 1 Kings iii. 28 is from the Book of Nathan,
who is named as the chronographer of both David and
Solomon (1 Chronicles xxix. 29 and 2 Chronicles ix. 29).
Gad is mentioned no more up to 2 Samuel xxiv. 11-22 ; but
that story, placed there among the appendices, certainly be
longs chronologically to 2 Samuel vi., * and Gad is always
* See also 1 Chronicles xxi. 19.

52 The Former Prophets.
called Choseh and not Nahi, the official prophet, which
Nathan was after David was anointed King of all Israel (2
Samuel vii.), and he maintained himself also for some time
under Solomon. The three narrators, although differing
decidedly in style, diction and phraseology — the Nathan por
tion being the most polished and elegant — all wrote like
eye-witnesses thoroughly acquainted with the most minute
details in regard to persons and places mentioned. They have
in common antagonism to the house of Saul, which proves
that they wrote before the division of the kingdom ; after
this event there was no further occasion for that enmity. The
last writer, the Prophet Nathan, knows King Solomon for
his piety and wisdom only (1 Kings iii. 3, 5, 28), knows
nothing of his idolatry (1 Kings xi. 1-13) and his despotism
(xii. 1-4) ; nor does he know anything of the immensity of
his wisdom (1 Kings iv. 9-14) and his literary productions.
He evidently wrote during the earlier days of the reign of
Solomon. This is undoubtedly the time when the Book of
Samuel, as it is before us, was compiled. The same Prophet
Nathan seems also to be the author of Psalms i., ii. and Ixxii.,
which, in connection with the first chapters of Kings and 2
Samuel vii. 12-15, explain one another well in regard to
time.* 15. Among the various internal proofs that Samuel wrote
his portion of the book prior to the rise of Zion and the tem
ple, as for instance the Hfll DIM IJ? in 1 Samuel v. 5, and
vi. 15, there is the frequent mention of Bamoth, " high places,"
and the building of altars to Jehovah outside of the national
sanctuary, without any censure or objection, which no
prophetical writer after Samuel would have permitted to
pass uncensured, as is evident from the Book of Kings.
Samuel builds an altar (1 Samuel vii. 17) at Ramah, has
there his Bamah (ix. 12 e. s.) while there was another Bamah
in Gilead, where the sons of the prophets worship (x. 13),
and the sanctuary was in Nob (xxi.). Saul also built an
altar to Jehovah (xiv. 35) near Ayalon, and Ahiah, the
* See our " Defense of Judaism," Psalm II. , p. 109.

Pronaos to Holy Writ. 53
grandson of Eli, was there with the ark of the covenant and
did not censure it. The Bamah at Gibeon, with the Mosaic
tabernacle and altar, was there yet in the time of David.
Zadok was chief priest there, Haiman and Jeduthum were
the chief Levites, although the ark was in Zion (1 Chronicles
xvi. 37, also xxi. and xxix.), and was there yet in the time of
Solomon (1 Kings iii. 4 e. s.) and was called the great Bamah.
No later prophetical writer (see 1 Kings iii. 2) would have
allowed the building of altars and Bamoth to pass without
some censuring or explanatory notice. We stand here evi
dently upon historical ground in the lifetime of Samuel.
16. The objections to this theory are (1) from 1 Samuel
ii. 10 and 35 ; in both cases it is maintained the Messiah-
King is mentioned, which points to a time after Samuel and
to another author. In both cases, however, the passages
can be taken out of their respective places without changing
either the sense or the meter,* and may well have been
added by Nathan, for the same reason as the appendix was
added to Judges, to suggest that the theocratic-democratic
Samuel prophesied the coming change from the republic to
the monarchy ; or as verse 10 occurs in the hymn of Hannah,
and verse 35 in the prophecy of the Man of God to Eli, and
not by Samuel, it may well be that this coming change was
indeed predicted by various intelligent people, and was
delayed only by the successful administration of Samuel.
(2)1 Samuel ix. 9 may certainly have been written by Sam
uel himself :
" Beforetime in Israel, when a man went to inquire of God,
thus he spake, Come and let us go to the seer ; for he that
is now called a prophet was beforetime called a seer."
In the same chapter Samuel is called "Man of God,"
" Seer " and " Prophet." It appears, therefore, that the

»In the poem of Hannah the words 12^10^ ny ]Tr: disturb the
meter, and ln'B» may refer to the high priest, who was the anointed
one. The three words referring to the king are evidently a later
addition. In the message of the Ish Elohim, verse 35, read ':d!? fpnl
"Tl'lOIi " He (the Cohen) shall walk before me my Messiah all the
days."

54 The Former Prophets.
" Seer " was still in usage, in common parlance, while the
" Prophet " was no less the official name of the " Man of
God," at the time when Samuel wrote, which was also the
case beforetime ; and this explanation is given to show why
Saul and his companions, as also the maidens, met in the city,
persistently called the prophet seer, the latter word being
yet in popular use, while the term prophet was the correct
expression. The populace looked upon the Man of God as
being a seer or soothsayer, while iu fact he was the Nabi,
the inspired orator.
(8) First Samuel xxvii. 7 : "And Achish gave him (David),
Ziklag; therefore Ziklag belonged to the Kings of Judah
unto this day." According to Joshua xix. 5, 31, there were
two Ziklags, one belonging to Simeon (1 Chronicles iv. 30),
and one to Judah. The former was captured by the Philis
tines and given to David by Achish, and remained crown
domain to the kings of Judah, the first of which was David.
Before he was made King of all Israel, it could have well
been said, that Ziklag was crown domain of the Kings of
Judah to this day. But if this be taken as one of the ex
planatory notes, the like of which were added to the histori
cal accounts by some later writer, being in all cases explana
tory notes only, they can not be taken as criteria of the age
of the text itself As an instance of this kind may be
quoted (Joshua xix. 47), which could not have been written
in the time of Joshua, and yet it occurs in the topographi
cal portion of Joshua, the authenticity of which none could
doubt, especially as it closes thus : " These are the inherit
ances which Eleazar, the priest, and Joshua, the son of Nun,
and the heads of the fathers of the tribes of the children of
Israel, divided for an inheritance by lot in Shiloh before the
Lord at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation. So
they made an end of dividing the country." None of these
explanatory or marginal notes could have been written after
the fall of Samaria in 720 B. C, and the one regarding Zik
lag may have been written at any time after the death of
Solomon ; hence they give no support to radical criticism
anyhow.

Pronaos to Holy Writ. 55
17. The Book of Kings, as it is now before us, consists of
22 and 25 chapters (modern division), 35 Sedarim (ancient
division), 1,534 verses, the middle of which is 1 Kings xxii. 6.
The contents of this book are :
Chapter i. to ii. 11. The last days and last will of David.
Chapter ii. 12 to v. 82. The earlier part of Solomon's
reign. Chapter vi. to ix. Building and dedication of the Tem
ple ; the king's house and the other buildings and cities.
Chapters x. and xi. The latter part of Solomon's reign.
Chapter xii. Division of the kingdom in Judah and
Israel ; Rehabeam and Jeroboam.
Chapter xin. The prophet at Beth El, his mission and
death. Chapter xrv. to 2 Kings xvii. 6 is an abstract of synchro
nistic history of the two kingdoms, their kings and prophets.
Chapter xvii. 7 to 41. A review of the past. The estab
lishment of the foreign nations in the country of Israel and
their conversion.
Chapter xviii. to xxv. An abstract of the history of
Judah, and the destruction of Jerusalem, with a later addi
tion of four verses on the liberation of King Jehoiachin from
prison. 18. Kings consists of four sections written at diff'erent
times, viz. : (1) The first three chapters are from the book
ofthe prophet Nathan. (2) The history of King Solomon,
up to chapter xi., including the building ofthe Temple, is
from " Dibrei Shelomoh " (1 Kings xi. 41),* which may have
been written by one of the two prophets named in Chron
icles (2 Chronicles ix. 29). (3) From 1 Kings xi. to 2 Kings
xvii. is the work of one synoptic ; and (4) from chapter
xviii. to the end of the book is the work of another and
later synoptic, who also connected the various sections into
* According to the statement in 1 Kings xi. 41 : "And the rest of
the acts of Solomon and all that he did, and his wisdom — are they not
written in the book of the acts of Solomon? " — the literary produc
tions of the wise king, hence also his Proverbs, at least up to chap
ter XXV., must have been contained in that book.

56 The Former Prophets.
one book. There exists no reasonable objection to the tradi
tion, that this last synoptic and compiler was the prophet
Jeremiah. These closing chapters begin with the lengthy
account of King Hezekiah, taken from Isaiah xxxvi.-xxxix.,
after this synoptic had repeated (xviii. 9-12) what the former
synoptic had written already (xvii. 1-6), showing distinctly
that a new account, by a different writer, begins there, which
is also apparent from the diff'erent phraseology of the last
author. In his first chapter he mentions Moses three times,
viz., the serpent which Moses had made; the command
ments which God commanded Moses ; according to all
which Moses commanded, the servant of the Lord (as in
Joshua). While the first synoptic mentions Moses but
twice in his entire book, and in entirely different phrases,
viz. : " The Thorah of the Lord, the God of Israel " (2 Kings
X. 31) ; As written in the Book of the Thorah of Moses (ibid.
xiv. 6) as in 1 Kings ii. 3. In chapter xxi. the style of Jere
miah is easily discernible. In the next chapters the narra
tive of an eye-witness is before us, one who is well-informed
in his people's history and literature. What he narrates
briefly after the death of King Joshiah he records at length
in his own book (Jeremiah xxxix. to xiii. and lii.). The
same hand is discernible in both books.
19. This last synoptic, however, could not possibly have
written the section of the first, which begins with the last
days of Solomon and closes with the fall of Samaria. It is
not the history of Judah, it is the history of Israel and its
prophets, which was his main object. He begins by placing
King Solomon in the very worst light he could without doing
violence to facts. He then justifies the secession of the tribes
from the house of David and betrays nowhere any desire,
except in Elijah's altar on Mt. Carmel, of reuniting them.
He attempts sub rosa to excuse the schism introduced by
Jeroboam by condemning the Baal worship in much stronger
language than he censured the worship introduced by Jero
boam. While he with special care reports the names and
marvelous deeds of the prophets in Israel and the sons of
the prophets, he has little or nothing to say of cotemporary

Pronaos to Holy Writ. 57
prophets in Judah, not even of Joel, Isaiah and his older
cotemporaries. He omits important facts concerning Judah,
Jerusalem, the Temple and the priesthood, narrated later by
the author of Chronicles, so that it appears evident that he
wrote the synchronistic history of Judah only as far as nec
essary for a better understanding of the history of Israel.
This undoubtedly was the cause which prompted the author
of Chronicles to write the history of Judah, Jerusalem, the
Temple and priesthood without more than absolutely neces
sary reference to the history of Israel. Most remarkable in
this connection is the notice that the priest who, after the
fall of Samaria, was sent among the aliens of Samaria to
teach them the laws and religion of the land, was one of the
priests of Samaria, and not of Jerusalem (2 Bangs xvii. 28).
We have before us in the first synoptic an anonymous
prophet, who, after the fall of Samaria, wrote the history of
Israel with special reference to the synchronistic events in
Judah. That he was a prophet is evident from the space he
allots to the prophetical history. That he was an exact and
truthful historian is evident now by the corroboration of
his statements in the Babylonian- Assyrian inscriptions. It is
no less evident that he must have written prior to Jeremiah.
According to 2 Kings xvii. 19 he must have lived in the
time of King Menasseh, as appears also from " unto this
day " in verses 23 and 41. The only prophet from that
period who might have written it is Habakkuk or Nahum ;
concluding from his prophecy, it was the latter, as shall be
shown further on.
The first chapters from the Book of Nathan may be dated
about 980 B. C. ; the chapters from Dibrei Shelomoh, 960
B. C. ; the first synoptic, 700 B. C. ; the second synoptic and
compiler of the whole book, 580 B. C, with the last verses
added by one of the last prophets.
.' 20. In these four books — Joshua, Judges, Samuel and
Kings — we have before us a complete and chronologically cor
rect history of the ancient Israel from their coming into the
land of Canaan to the very day of their exile to Assyria and
then to Babylon, all written by prophets for the instruction

58 The Former Prophets.
of the people, with the outspoken object in view, to prove,
by authentic history, that Israel's salvation is in God, his
covenants, his law, and all national misery is divine retribu
tion for rebellious conduct. As soon as these facts were
known, these books became canons ; therefore they were
called Former Prophets. It has never been proved that any
of these books, or any portion thereof, was ever re-written
according to Deuteronomy or any otherliterature, nor could
it be proved. The style, phraseology and tendency of the
various portions of this literature are so entirely diff'erent
from one another ; the irregularities and unevenness in the
language in various portions ofthe books also have been so
conscientiously preserved, that evidently no corrector's or
reviser's hand ever touched them. If such an attempt had
ever been made to remodel them after the so-called Jahvis
tic or Deuteromic legislation, the Book of Judges and por
tions of the Book of Kings must certainly have been elimi
nated or re-written first. All alleged facts, data and names
of persons and places noted in these books, whenever com
pared with other historical material having any bearing
upon them, are corroborated and confirmed. Opposite such
sources all a priori speculations underlying the construction
or reconstruction of Israelitish history, are certainly illegiti
mate and unreliable. Hitherto all critics failed in disquali
fying these historical sources. As these sources estabhsh
the facts narrated in the Pentateuch and its Mosaic origin,
all a priori speculations, basing upon assumptions and
hypotheses, are null and void. Indeed, the radical critics
never attempted to invalidate these historical sources by in
ternal evidence or by comparison with cotemporary events,
they having started out with the hypothesis that there was
no law of Moses prior to Ezra or King Joshiah, sought
means to disqualify these historical books, because they
undoubtedly testify to the existence of the Mosaic law prior
to Joshua. In the face of this historical testimony, however,
all hypotheses and speculations fall to the ground, and with
them the whole artificial structure of radical criticism.

CHAPTER IV.
THE LATER PROPHETS.
THE second part of the second Canon consists of the four
prophetical books, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and twelve
Minor Prophets. The names of the authors are given in
each of the fifteen books, and in some of them the respective
names are mentioned more than once ; as, for instance, in
Isaiah three times, twice in Ezekiel, thirteen times in Jere
miah, seventeen times in Jonah, three times in Zechariah,
nine times in Haggai, twice in Hosea and Amos, and once
at least in every other book. Sorbe of those prophets are
mentioned in other books of the Bible, as Isaiah in 2 Kings,
Michah in Jeremiah xxvi., Jonah in 2 Kings xiv., Obadiah in
1 Kings xviii. , Haggai and Zechariah twice in Ezra. Only
in parts of Isaiah, Jonah and Zechariah is the authorship
questionable ; in regard to all the other prophets it is gen
erally admitted that they are the authors of the books bear
ing their names, the exceptions to be noticed below, after we
have ascertained the dates of those prophets.
2. It is necessary to review the literary monuments of
these prophets in chronological order, as the knowledge of
the emergencies and vicissitudes of every age furnish the
key to a proper understanding of its literature. It is also
of special interest and importance to know that a regular
and uninterrupted succession of prophets is recorded in the
sacred books. This establishes two facts : (a) the uninter
rupted current of tradition in Israel, which is the main fort
and support of its literary material ; and (6) the continuous
presence in all ages of history, of a prominent and numer
ous class of purely Jahvistic-theocratic worshipers and
patriots as the main body of the nation, among whom the
semi-paganized elements, of more or less numerical strength

60 The Later Prophets.
at diff'erent times, were the demoralized exceptions in the
normal condition of the nation.
Two facts must be borne in mind : (a) The propheta of
' Jehovah were at no time isolated individuals of a visionary
characterr, or teachers of religion and guardians of morality
exclusively ; they were the representatives and spokesmen
of the party of theocratic patriots, statesmen and advocates
of human rights, the covenant and the law no less than stern
teachers of. righteousness. (6) They appear in Scriptures
under diff'erent names, as Nabi, Chozeh, Ro'eh, Ish Elohim,
Malach Elohim, also, Malach Jehovah.* These diff'erent
names may designate different ranks among those inspired
men, whose common title was Nabi, "spokesman" (Exodus
iv. 14; vii. 1).
According to the traditions recorded in the Talmud there
was an uninterrupted succession of prophets from Adam to
Abraham. Prominent among them were Seth, Enoch, Me
thuselah (who was the head of an academy '^tJ' IJJ'llQ
n'^tJ'lJlO), Noah, Shem and Eber; the latter two are also
supposed to have been at the head of an academy, from
which Abraham and Jacob derived their knowledge, called
13J?1 DB* '7^ ItJ'llO ri'l, and where also Rebecca went to
inquire of the Lord (Genesis xxv. 22). In the time of the
Patriarchs, we are informed in Genesis, there lived a con
siderable number of such inspired messengers of God (Gene
sis xix. 1 ; xxii. 11,14; xxxii. 21). From Abraham to Moses

, *The term Malach signifies "messenger," either profane or
divine ; if the latter, it is rendered " angel." It is synonymous with
Malachah, " work," and designates a person or thing doing a cer
tain work, an active agent, a factor. In Scriptures persons are
called Malach, as the high priest in Malachi ii. 7, the prophet in
Haggai i. 13, and elsewhere. In the Talmud the grandson of
Aaron, Phineas, is called an angel in explanation of Judges ii. 1 :
"And an angel of Jehovah went up from Gilgal to Bochim." This
angel was Phineas. The angel of Exodus xxiii. 20 is considered
identical with the Nabi of Deuteronomy xviii. 15-22, by Moses
Maimonides and others. Elements also are called angels, Psalms
civ. 4, and the wind a word of God (ibid, cxlvii. 18).

Pronaos to Holy Writ. 61
the succession was Isaac, Jacob and their wives, Levi,
Kehath, Amram and Moses, which seems to be based on
1 Samuel ii. 27, 28 and this again on Deuteronomy xxxiii.
8-11. However, the idea underlying this tradition may be that
of successive revelation and the conservation of knowledge
by natural means.
In the time of Moses many prophets are mentioned :
Aaron, Miriam, Hur, Eldad, Medad, the seventy elders, and
Moses expresses the wish that all the people of the Lord be
prophets. Between Joshua and Samuel, although we pos
sess of that time mere fragments and episodes of history, for
the most time a bare nomenclature of Judges, the continu
ous existence of the Jahvistic-theocratic patriots as the bulk
and kernel of the people and the appearance of prophets are
continually noticed. In Judges i. 2 appears the Malach
Jehovah, supposed to be Phineas. Ibid., chapter iii., appears
Othniel, son of Kenaz, of whom it is said, " And the
spirit of Jehovah was upon him " (verse 10). Chapters iv.
and V. the Prophetess Deborah appears in her full glory of
monotheism and theocratic patriotism. Ibid., chapter vi.,
there appears first the Ish Nabi, " the man prophet," who
speaks to the children of Israel ; then the Malach Jehovah,
who speaks to Gideon ; and then Gideon himself, of whom
it is stated repeatedly, "And God said to Gideon." After
the death of Gideon and Abimelech follows a long time of
peace and prosperity, always supposed to be a period of
theocratic piety, when no prophet is heard. Right after
that follows Jephthah, of whom it is stated, "And there was
upon Jephthah the spirit of Jehovah " (xi. 29). Then comes
again the Malach Jehovah to the mother of Samson (xiii. 2),
who is called in the same chapter Ish Ho' elohim, " The man
of God " (verse 8), and plainly Ish (verse 10) ; and also Sam
son, of whom it is stated three times that the spirit of Jeho
vah moved and incited him (xiii. 28; xiv. 6, 19). This
brings the prophetical succession down to Samuel, and with
it the permanent Jahvistic theocracy also.
With Samuel begins a new period of prophecy and litera
ture. For a long time none was acknowledged from Dan to

62 The Later Prophets.
Beer Sheba, a prophet of Jehovah, as he was, no revelation
from Jehovah was received at Shiloh as Samuel did (1 Sam
uel iii. 20, 21). Tradition credits him with the establish
ment of the school of prophets at Najoth in Ramah, the
disciples of which were called Bene Hannebiim, " Sons of the
Prophets." Choruses of these prophetical disciples existed
in the land during the latter days of Samuel (ibid. x. 9, 10),
whose inspiring influence neither King Saul nor his messen
gers could resist (ibid. xix. 18-24), called there plainly a
chorus of prophets. Their presence and infiuence are
noticed in the historical records, also in the kingdom of
Israel, down to the end of the Ahab dynasty ( 1 Kings xx.
25 ; 2 Kings ii. 3, 5, 8, 15 ; vi. 1). This one fact proves the
continuous prophetical succession from Samuel to Elijah
and Elisha and Joel. The succession, however, during
this whole period is marked in the historical records also
by prominent names of prophets. Shortly after the death
of Samuel we meet with David in the cave of AduUam, the
Prophet Gad (1 Samuel xxii. 5). During the lifetime of
Saul, and to his very end, the prophets are there, although
no particular names are given (ibid, xxviii. 6). At the
court of David, as King of all Israel, we meet the Prophet
Nathan, high in authority (2 Samuel vii. and xii. ; 1 Kings
i.) and also Gad (2 Samuel xxiv. 11-14). At the court of
Solomon the prophetical voice was suppressed, still at the
end of his days it resounds so much more terribly by Ahiah,
of Shiloh (1 Kings xi. 29-39), to whom is added in 2 Chron
icles, Jedi the Seer (ix. 29). After the demise of Solomon,
the prophetical voice of Shemaiah is heard (1 Kings xii.
22-24; 2 Chronicles xi. 2-4; xii. 5), called in one account-
Ish Ha'elohim, and in the other Nabi. Shortly after we read
of another Ish Elohim coming from Judah to Beth El
exhorting King Jeroboam, who finds in Beth El "' an old
prophet" (2 Kings xiii.); and Jeroboam sends his wife
stealthily to the Prophet Ahiah. This phalanx of prophets
is succeeded in the days of King Asa by Azariah ben Oded,
and later on by Hanani the Seer (2 Chronicles xv. 1-7 and
xvi. 7-9). Cotemporary with Azariah was in Israel Jehu

Pronaos to Holy Writ. 63
ben Hanani, whose message to King Bashah is noted, 2 Kings
xvi. 1-4. With Hanani the Seer we come down to the
thirty-fifth year of Asa. Three years later Ahab mounts the
throne of Israel, and five to six years later Jehoshaphat
mounts the throne of Judah. During the reign of these
kings appears the prophetical pillar of fire, Elijah the Tish-
bite, his disciple, EUshah, Michaiahu ben Jimlah, a host of
true and of false prophets, and sons of the prophets. So
also by this historical nomenclature we establish the con
tinuous succession of prophets and the Jahvistic theocracy
from Samuel to Elijah, about one hundred and fifty years.
The chain of succession is no less solid from Eliah to
Isaiah, with whom a new period of prophetical literature
begins. During the long reign of King Jehoshaphat the
records show besides Elijah, EUshah and Michaiahu, also the
Prophets Jahaziel ben Zechariah (2 Chronicles xx. 14-17) ;
Eliezer ben Dodovahu (ibid, verse 37) ; Jehu ben Hanani
again (ibid. xix. 2) and Joel ben Pethuel, of whom we treat
below. These later prophets outlived King Jehoshaphat.
During the next following sixteen years, under the reign of
the wicked Jehoram, Ahaziah and Athaliah, no prophets
speak, still those mentioned last must have outlived the
evil years, as EUshah died thirty-eight years later (2 Kings
xiii. 10, 14-20) ; and an exhorting letter of Elijah to King
Jehoram is noticed in 2 Chronicles xxi. 12-15. During the
reign of King Joash, the prophets are noticed (ibid. xxiv.
19),- and especially Zechariah ben Jehoiada, who was slain
in the court of the temple by command of the king. Under
the successor of Joash, his son Amaziah, we meet again
with the Ish Ha'elohim, and later on with the Nabi, announc
ing divine messages of retribution to this king (2 Chronicles
xxv. 7, 15) ; and also Jonah ben Amithai from Gath Hepher
(2 Kings xiv. 25), who prophesied success to Jeroboam IL,
as this king mounted the throne of Israel in the fifteenth
year of Amaziah's reign. This brings the succession down
to the time of King Uzziah, called in 2 Kings Azariah (xiv.
21), whose prophetical adviser was another Zechariah
(2 Chronicles xxvi. 5) — perhaps identical with the one men-

64 The Later Prophets.
tioned in Isaiah viii. 2 — and in direct connection with Amos
(i. 1), Hosea (i. 1), Isaiah (i. 1), and his younger cotempo
rary, Michah (i. 1 ; Jeremiah xxvi. 18). During the reign
of Ahaz there was also in Samaria the Prophet Oded (2
Chronicles xxviii. 9), whose remarkable influence upon the
victorious warriors of Samaria furnishes no mean evidence
to the effect that the Jahvistic theocracy predominated also
in the northern kingdom notwithstanding the schism of
Jeroboam. Tradition accuses Hezekiah's son and successor, Menasseh,
of having slain the Prophet Isaiah, which says that he out
lived Hezekiah. This seems also to be the case with the
Prophet Michah. It seems quite likely that Isaiah xiii. and
xiv. was written when Menassah was a captive in Babylon
(2 Chronicles xxxiii. 10, 11) ; and Michah vi. and vii. were
written in the time of that king. Besides this, however, dur
ing the fifty-seven years of Menasseh's and Amon's reign,
when Jerusalem and the country were so much paganized,
the prophets wqre not silent. The prophets' exhorting and
threatening voices are noticed in 2 Kings xxi. 11-15, and in
2 Chronicles xxxiii. 10, 18, where one of them, called Hozai,
is specially mentioned. Besides them, as we shall see below,
Nahum, Habakkuk and Zephaniah belong to this age. Thus
we 'are led in regular succession to the prophetess Huldah
and the Prophet Jeremiah. In the time of this inspired and
woe-stricken patriot there lived an abundance of true and
false prophets, also ill-fated Uriah, who was slain by King
Jehoiakim (Jeremiah xxvi. 20-23), besides his younger
cotemporary, Ezekiel, in Babylonia. There also was no
scarcity of both kinds of prophets, besides Daniel and his
companions (Ezekiel xxii. 23-28; xxxiv.), so that among
the colonies returning from the exile there were prophets
even besides Haggi, Zechariah and Malachi, and they were
there yet in considerable numbers besides the Prophetess
Noadiah in the time of Nehemiah (Nehemiah vi. 7, 12, 14).
With Haggai the millenium of prophecy closes, which begins
with Moses, and up to him no ring is missing in the chain
of succession. So the genius of the Hebrew people mani-

Pronaos to Holy Writ. 65
fested itself continually and continuously for one thouBand
years through those favored persons, whose knowledge, wis
dom, zeal and enthusiasm outshine and overtower all pro
ducts of their cotemporary intelligence which have reached
us. This is certainly marvelous if not miraculous.
3. The Book of Joel (Yo'el) ben Pethuel is before us in
four chapters (modern division), of seventy-three verses, the
middle of which is ii. 17. The whole of Minor Prophets, of
which Joel's is one of the twelve books thereof, contains
twenty-one Sedarim (ancient division), one thousand and
fifty verses, the half of which is in Michah iii. 12, which,
remarkable enough, is the direct prediction ofthe destruction
of Jerusalem and its temple, a parallel to Amos ii. 5. This
Joel book, undoubtedly written by himself, according to its
purely Hebraic diction, clear and unequivocal phraseology,
stands nearest among all the Later Prophets to the David
and Solomon age, as it is refiected in the Davidian Psalms
and Solomonic Proverbs. This, it seems, led some of the
ancient rabbis to confound this prophet with Joel, the son
of Samuel and father of Heman, the great master of music
in the time of King David (1 Chronicles vi. 18). Later ex
pounders, however, understood this rabbinical expression,
" son of Samuel," like " disciple of Samuel," or one of the
school of Samuel. This seems to be correct, as that David-
Solomon period of the Hebrew style originated from the
Samuel school at Najoth. The fact that this prophet knows
of no Assyrian, Babylonian or even Syrian invasion of
Judah, speaks of no dispersion and restoration of the
nation, and mentions only Edom, Ammon, Moab and the
Philistines as enemies of Judah, points distinctly to the
latter days of King Jehoshaphat, when, according to 2
Chronicles xx. 1 and 10, those nationalities invaded Judah,
and most likely after a long period of hostilities and depre
dations, were checked, not by the force of the Judaic arms,
but by dissensions among themselves (verse 23), which
forced them to fiee in wild disorder at the approach of
Jehoshaphat's army. This was shortly after a period of
famine in the Kingdom of Israel (2 Kings viii.) under the

66 The Later Prophets.
reign of Jehoram, and the Prophet Joel dwells on thia subr
ject most emphatically — the singeing drought which destroys
even the trees of the field, and the army of locusts which
consumes the last blade of grass, the consequent famine and
mourning among men and beasts, the prayers, fasts and
repentance of sins among the cheerless people, the mercy of
God and his final sending of the first rain and the latter rain
together in the unusual time of the first month of the year,
which puts an end to the misery (Joel ii. 23). All this
points to the days of Jehoshaphat and Jehoram. Besides
these points, there is yet the fact that Joel speaks with
reverence and adoration of Zion, the holy mount, the altar,
the sacrifices, the priesthood and their office, as none of the
later prophets do. This state of the cult and the law could
only have been in the time of King Jehoshaphat, whose re
forms were not limited to the city and temple of Jerusalem,
but permeated the masses of the people (2 Chronicles xix.
and XX.) ; or in the tiufie of the high priest Jehoiadah, or
King Hezekiah. However, the style of the book and the
peculiarity of the promises connected with this prophetical
oracle pointing to a time after the David-Solomonic age and
to the lofty inspiration of the Elijah and EUshah time, as
the conjuncture of events touched upon in the book point to
the time of Jehoshaphat, we may safely assert that Joel was
written in the decade prior to 880 B. C. This is also the
opinion of the celebrated commentator, Moses Chiquitilla,
expressed in his Perush Threi-Assar.*
4. The first verse of Joel iv. is taken as a proof that this
chapter at least was not written before the fall of Samaria,
or perhaps not before the fall of Jerusalem. For that verse
reads : " For behold, in those days and in that time when
W'lm'y) niM* nntr n^ y^^ (usually translated) I
will bring back the captives of Judah and Jerusalem ; and I
will assemble all the nations and I will bring them down
into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and I will go into judgment
»The Valley of Jehoshaphat (Joel iv. 2) was afterward called
Emek Barachah (2 Chronicles xx. 26).

Pronaos to Holy Writ. 67
with them on account of my people and my inheritance,
Israel, which they scattered among the nations, and my
land (which they) divided." This is a mistaken notion,
however; because
(a) In verses 3 and 6 the prophet states plainly that the
scattered of Israel were either kidnapped or captured per
sons who had been sold to the Greeks as slaves, to which
refer Amos i. 6-13 ; Zephaniah iii. 10, and Zechariah ix. 13,
as is also evident from 2 Kings v. 2. Besides this, it is evi
dent that voluntary migration of Hebrews began as early as
the time of King Solomon.
(6) The phrase translated, " I will bring back thy captives,"
is a quotation from Deuteronomy xxx. 3, where it is evident
from ?^ IJ^ n3B'"l in the preceding verse, and from itJ'l
lV3pl following this passage, as also from the Aramaic
rendition by Jonathan, Ibn Ezra's quotation from Judah
Chaiyug, the Sepurni and others, that it must be rendered :
"And the Lord thy God will cause to return thy peni
tents." So, and not otherwise, this phrase must be under
stood here and wherever it occurs, as in Psalms xiv. 7 and
liii. 7, as proved by Psalms Ixxxv., where this phrase is fol
lowed by its definition : " Thou hast forgiven the iniquity
of thy people, thou hast covered over all their sins." *
(c) The Prophet Joel (iv. 4) tells who they were that
scattered Israel among the nations and divided its lands.
They were the men of Tyre, Zidon and Philistia, the marau
ders and slave-traders of those days, and not the Assyrians
or Babylonians ; consequently, he must necessarily have
spoken of a time prior to the very first Assyrian invasions,
if even the phrase in (6) is understood as in the authorized
English translation.
There is evidently no trace in this whole book of any time
after 880 B. C.
5. Amos was the oldest of the four prophets that prophe
sied simultaneously, viz., Hosea, Amos, Isaiah and Michah.
According to tradition Hosea was the oldest, but not accord-
?See Mechilta, Friedmann's edition, p. 166., on Xf).

68 The Later Prophets.
ing to the testimony of their respective books. Amos
prophesied in the time of Jeroboam IL, King of Israel, and
Uzziah, King of Judah (Amos i. 1), and not even to the last
years of King Jeroboam. If he had known of the victories
and conquests of this king, the glorious achievements of his
cotemporary. King Uzziah, in Judah, and the reviving hopes
and prosperity of the people (2 Kings xv. ; 2 Chronicles
xxvi.), he must have noticed them in his speeches. Hosea
(i. 1) lived from the time of Uzziah and Jeroboam to the
time of Hezekiah. In his prophecies the victories' and con
quests of both kings, the wealth, prosperity and reviving
hopes of the people, connected with unbridled luxury and
moral corruption, are re-echoed in unmistakable language.
On the other hand, it is evident that this prophet had no
knowledge of the Assyrian invasion in the fourth year of
Hezekiah, and the Shalmon Baith Arbal in x. 14 can not
refer to Salmanaser, who reigned from 727-725 B. C, as he
only knew of emigrants that had gone to Assyria and Egypt.
He only knows of the hope and confidence placed in that
power and in Egypt (Hosea xi. 5, 11 ; xiv. 2-10), which
points directly to the time of King Ahaz (2 Kings xvi., and
2 Chronicles xxviii.). His prophecies can be placed only
between the last years of Rehoboam II. , and about the mid
dle of the time of Ahaz. Isaiah (i. 1) was a younger cotem
porary of Hosea. In the heading to this book the name of
Jeroboam is omitted. His prophecies, however, beginning
with the death of King Uzziah (vi. 1), are chiefiy from the
time of Ahaz and Hezekiah and reach into the time of King
Menasseh. Michah must have been a younger cotemporary
of Isaiah, whose diction he has acquired, and with whom he
has form and contents of prophecy and even texts in com
mon (Michah iv. and Isaiah ii.). He is noticed (ibid. i. 1) in
the reigh of Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah only. Still he has
evidently not seen the fall of Samaria. His prophecies can
be placed only between Ahaz and the sixth year of Hezekiah.
The dates for these prophecies may be thus :
Amos, 816 to 780 B. C.
Hosea, 750 to 730 B. C.

Pronaos to Holy Writ. 69
Isaiah, 735 to 700 B. C.,with chapter vi. from 757 B.C.
Michah, 735 to 720 B. C.
5. The Book of Amos, written by him, is before us in
nine chapters (modern division), 146 verses, the middle of
which is V. 15, remarkable for the shortness of its chapters,
of 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, and but one of 27 verses. He came from
among the herdsmen of Thekoa, a town noted for its wise
women already in the time of King David (2 Samuel xiv.).
When he was expelled from Beth El by the priest, he said
of himself: " I am no prophet and no son of a prophet ; I
am a herdsman and a gatherer of sycamore fruit ; and the
Lord took me, as I followed the flock, and the Lord said to
me, Go, prophesy unto my people Israel" (Amos vii. 14,
15). But once he refers to the misdeeds of Judah (ii. 4, 5),
as he does to the surrounding petty nations, and twice to the
punishment in store for Judah (vi. 1). All his messages,
exhortations and prophecies are directed to Israel and its
King, Joroboam IL, with the only exception of the closing
message, in which he announces the restoration of "the
fallen booth of David " and the restoration of Israel and its
country after the period of devastation and desolation.
There are system and unity in Amos' book. Chapter i.-iv.
consists of prophetical messages, v.-ix. of prophetical
visions, with an exalted finale. The diction is not as simple
and clear as in Joel; it contains some few orthographic
irregularities, aside ofwhich it is idiomatic and classical.
6. The Book of Hosea (Hoshea), son of Beeri, a citizen
of the northern kingdom — according to the traditions the
scion of an aristocratic family — is before us in fourteen chap
ters (modern division), 197 verses, the middle of which is
vii. 13. This book, like Amos', is remarkable for its short
chapters, the longest of which is one of twenty-five and the
shortest one of five verses. The book begins with propheti
cal visions (i. to iii.) symbolizing the prevailing corruption
in the Kingdom of Israel and closing up hopefully for Israel's
re-elevation and its return to the only God and the Davidian
dynasty, i. e., to union with Judah. This portion was evi
dently written in the earlier period of the prophet's life;

70 The Later Prophets.
v.-xiv. consists of prophetical speeches of a stern character,
addressed to the people, its priests ahd the house of its king,
recounting in forcible language the prevailing aberrations
and corruptions and announcing with perfect certainty the
punishment, the particular nature of it, which will come
over the commonwealth, and the restoration of Israel after
the punishment shall hare purified the remnant of the
people ; i.-iii. is prosiac, vi.-xiv. is rhythmical, that kind of
blank verse in the various forms of parallelism which makes
Hosea in diction the immediate forerunner of Isaiah. The
language is antique but faultless, the phraseology frequently
elliptic and enigmatical. Amos speaks like an inspired
herdsman, Hosea like a trained orator of the prophetical
school, not so well used as his predecessor to the popular
diction. 7. The Book of Isaiah (Yeshayah or Yeshayahu) ben
Amoz — according to tradition the nephew by his father of
King Amaziah — is before us in sixty-six chapters (modern
division) thirty Sedarim (ancient division), 1,295 verses,
the half of which is xxxiii. 21. Besides chapter vi., which is
a prophetical vision, consists, from i. to xxxv., of pro
phetical orations, and xxxvi. to xxxix. of historical nar
ratives, three episodes from the life of King Hezekiah.
Prom xl. to Ixvi. are again prophetical orations, of a different
nature, however, than the former. The" former, except
chapter vi., refer to the time ofthe Kings Ahaz and Hezekiah.
Chapter one points clearly (verses seven and eight) to the
invasion of Judea by Rezin and Pekah in the time of Ahaz.
The next following four chapters can not refer to any time
during the reign of King Jotham, who was a God-fearing
man (2 Kings xv. 34) and an eminent ruler over a prosperous
people (2 Chronicles xxvii.). They could refer only to the
time of Ahaz. It seems that these five chapters were not
considered by the compilers of equally high degree of
prophecy with the following chapters, and were therefore
placed before the beginning of his prophetical speeches.
Nowhere in these chapters is it found that God said or spoke
to Isaiah, as it occurs in the next following chapters (vi. 8 ;

Pronaos to Holy Writ. 71
vii. 3, 7 ; viii. 1, 5, e. s.) These first speeches are character
ized by the terms pM and Jlf 11, " vision " and not by verbal
communications from God, as are other chapters ofthe same
book. If the amendation was not too venturous, we would
say vi. 1 should read : " In the year of the death of Jotham."
Isaiah was first an inspired teacher of righteousness, who
became a prophet in the time of the invasions, wars, national
misfortunes and catastrophes with which the eighth century
B. C. closed. The heading Massa, which the prophet assumes
from the thirteenth chapter, distinguishes his prophecies to
the Gentiles from those to Israel. His references to Baby
lon and its downfall may have been inspired by the successful
rebellion of Morodoch Baladon, in whose success he saw the
rise of another powerful enemy to the smaller countries be
tween the Euphrates and the River of Egypt, whose final
downfall, however, he predicted, and it was fulfilled; for
Morodoch was slain six months after his messengers to
Hezekiah returned, and under his son and successor Babylon
was retaken by the Medes. The prophet, hostile to all
reliance on foreign powers, is no less hostile to any reliance
on the then youthful and promising power of Babylon,
whose speedy downfall he predicts. Chapter xix. merely
shows that the emigration from Judea and Israel into Egypt
was as numerous then as it was into Babylonia, to escape
from the power of Assyria, as is evident from other passages
in Isaiah. He prophesied success to the emigrants in Egypt,
as he did prophesy the downfall of Babylon. Egypt is near
and Babylon very distant from Palestine. The emigrants to
Egypt, he may have thought, might return after the fall of
Assyria, or might always remain in close intercourse with
their country and people, neither of which could be expected
from those that migrated to distant Babylon. There exists
no necessity to suppose that any chapter, or part of one,
from i. to xxxix. was not written by the very Isaiah, son of
Amoz, whose name is at the head ofthe book. The tradition
that Hezekiah and his commission " wrote," or rather col
lected and compiled the book oflsaiah, might be correct if we
presume that the said literary commission, called in Proverbs

72 The Later Prophets.
"the men of Hezekiah," was not dissolved at once after the
death of that king. The absence of dates and chronological
succession in parts ofthe book could only prove that the
compilers were governed by another than the chronological
principle, as is also the case in Psalms, the twelve Minor
Prophets and partly also in Jeremiah. It is yet to be
ascertained what that principle was. The Talmud admits
ni"lJl3 iniKOI DlpIO pK "there is no chronological order
in the Thorah," without informing us of any other principle
which guided the compilers. The other tradition of the
Talmud, however, that King Menassah slew Isaiah, seems
to be a mere allegory suggesting that Menassah in his
wickedness uprooted and destroyed all the piety and patriot
ism which Isaiah had cultivated among his people. With
Isaiah begins the third epoch of the Hebrew language. His
vocabulary is the richest, his tropes* most artistical, his
diction fully rhythmical, his poesy as mystical and sublime
as Job's or Homer's, all of which he outshines by the total
absence of fiction in his speeches and the unparalleled
power of formulating most sublime truths in the briefest and
most expressive words. He, like Joel, is a prophet of Judah
especially. Israel in his time was an enemy of Judah, and
later on it fell with the destruction of Samaria by Salman-
asar. Then came the invasion of Judea by Sennacherib and
his discomfiture before the walls of Jerusalem. These are
the main events which engaged the mind of Isaiah, except
where he casts the seer's glance into the distant future of
Israel and the human family, full of hope and cheer, also
under the most distressing vicissitudes of the present, with
unlimited confidence in the course of Providence, the future
of mankind, the final triumph of truth, righteousness and
goodness among all nations.
8. Isaiah xl. to Ixvi. is the product of another prophet, or
other prophets, that lived from near the close of the Baby
lonian captivity to a time after the dedication of the Second
Temple, 540 to 510 B. C. This is partly admitted by that
Talmudical tradition which, in the order of prophets, places
Isaiah after Ezekiel. Besides it is maintained in Leviticus

Pronaos to Holy Writ. 73
Rabba, chapter xv., that two prophecies of Bari, father of
Hosea, were attached to the book of Isaiah ; hence it is ad
mitted that not all of that book is of Isaiah. Abraham Ibn
Ezra, in his commentary to Isaiah, maintains that Jekaniah,
or Jehoyachin, the King of Judah, who was carried captive to
Babylon in the ninteenth year of his life (2 Kings xxiv. 8),
and kept there imprisoned thirty-seven years, till released
by Evil Morodoch, was the very prophet who produced those
chapters of the Isaiah book.* This ingenious hypothesis
accounts well for the classical Palestinean diction and many
obscure passages in the book, but not for all. Zerubabel
could not well have become Governor of the colony as long
as the legitimate King of Judah lived, and part of the Deutro
Isaiah was certainly spoken after the return from Babylon.
The fifty-third chapter of Isaiah, like chapter fifty-seven,
seems to be the funeral oration over that very king, whose
self-sacrifice, sufferings and final triumph are well described
there. Anyhow, the diction shows that it is not the product
of the same prophet as the other chapters. The same is the
case with the closing chapter of Isaiah and several passages
in other chapters. This forces us to admit that we do not
know who was the author or authors of Isaiah xl. to Ixvi.,
although it is evident that they were written in the time
between Darius I. and Darius IL, between 540 and 510 B. C,
in the century prior to Ezra and the close of the prophetical
cycle. It seems from the double tradition in the Talmud in
placing Isaiah before Jeremiah, or after Ezekiel, that there
were two different books of Isaiah before the compilers of
the Canon, an older and a younger Isaiah, which at a later
date were connected in one book, as was also the case with
the five chapters of Lamentations, which are certainly not
the product of one author, or with the Book of Psalms, of
which we treat later on.
*According to rabbinical tradition (Echah Babba) " Lamentations"
was written in the time of this king, and by Jeremiah; hence
Lament, iv. 20 refers to this king, and there he is called " Messiah
of the Lord ; " and the terms, nilkad bishchithothom, rather point to
Jekaniah than to Joshiah, who waa slain and not put in chains.

74 The Later Prophets.
The diction of Deutro Isaiah is entirely diff'erent from the
first in the vocabulary, metaphors, vocatives, tone and ten
dency. He is less poetical and more rhetorical and compares
rather to Demosthenes than to Homer. He is most vehement
and agitating, rousing to immediate action. His tropes,
similes, apostrophes or personifications are mostly taken
from the celestial sphere, always grand and universal, or from
the most tender sentiments ofthe human sexes, the bride, the
mother, the daughter of Zion, the confiding child. He
always speaks of Jacob, Israel, the servant of the Lord ;
never of Judah, Zion, or even Jerusalem, except when he re
fers to its ruins and desolation. He adresses some of his
messages to Cyrus, whom he calls the Messiah of the Lord,
is less national and much more universal than any one
of the older prophets. He is in style, tendency and
fundamental thought so entirely diff'erent from Isaiah and
the spirit of his time, that he could not possibly be indenti-
fied with his older namesake and his age, although that great
unknown may have borne the same name (See Ezra viii. 7)
or assumed it. The contents of his prophecies identify
him with the age of Zerubabel.
9. The Prophets after Isaiah to the Babylonian captivity
are Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Jeremiah, Obadiah and
the unknown author of the book of Jonah. The book of
Nahum (Nachum) is before us in three chapters (modern
division), seventy-four verses. The name is unique, although
it is evidently formed of Genesis v. 29 and became the parent
to the later name of' Nehemiah and Nehuniah. In the
Talmud the name recurs, and passages from this prophet are
quoted without any reference to his person or to the place
" Elkosh " added to his name. There was in Palestine a
place called Kephar Nahum, or Capernaum. This may have
been the Elkosh, called afterward after this prophet, but
there exists no proof for it, no more than that it was the
El-Kauzah near Ramah in Naphthali. He certainly was
a citizen of the northern kingdom whose downfall he had
¦witnessed. The diction of Nahum is so similar to that of
Isaiah and Micah that he may be easily recognized as their

Pronaos to Holy Writ. 75
disciple. He prophesied the downfall of Nineveh and
the Assyrian Empire, therefore his book is a Massa,
like Isaiah's prophecies to the Gentiles. His prophecy
was announced after the fall of Samaria (Nahum i.
4-6), and after the retreat of Sennacherib from Judah
(ibid. ii. 1-3). This occurred in 710 B. C. Between this
and the year 706 B. C. the Assyrian Empire was in a 'state
of dissolution ; many provinces besides Media revolted ; Sen
nacherib raged furiously among his own subjects till he was
finally slain by his sons. This was the time when Nahum
prophesied the destruction of Nineveh, which, however, did
not come to pass till a century later, in the year 612 B. C,
although the Assyrian Empire soon fell into the hands of the
Babylonian dynasty. The prophet, still aglow •with the ven
geance which he thought God would execute on Nineveh,
opens his message thus : " God is jealous, and the Lord re-
vengeth ; the Lord revengeth and is furious ; the Lord will
take vengeance on his adversaries, and he reserveth wrath for
his enemies." No other prophet ever presented God in such
a state of fury. As these expressions can not be understood
to convey the idea of what God is or was at that time, being
contrary to Moses in Exodus xxxiv. 6, they can only inform
us of the prophet's state of mind at that particular time,
which could have been the case but shortly after the fall of
Samaria and the invasion and downfall of Sennacherib
before Jerusalem, all that misery being still present to the
prophet's mind, with the faith in God's justice firmly estab
lished in his soul. We may, therefore, fix the date of
Nahum's prophecy between 710 and 705 B. C. The book has
no proper close and appears to be the fragment of a larger
work. 10. Habakkuk, also consisting of but three chapters and
fifty-six verses, is in diction the same as Nahum. He sees the
Chaldeans approach (i. 6), speaks of their conquests,
audacity and the slaughter of multitudes of human beings,
like the fish and the creeping things abandoned by Pro-vi-
dence (i. 7-17). He prophesies, ho-wever, salvation and ref
ormation to Judah, knows of no destruction of Jerusalem

76 The Later Prophets.
and no downfall of the nation (ii. 3, 4), and predicts the
downfall of the Chaldean invader almost in the same words
as Isaiah prohesied the fall of Babel (xxi. 5-8). Then he de
nounces the moral corruption and the idolatry in the highest
places of Jehuda's government (ii. 9-20). He refers to the
crushing defeat of Sennacherib, his miserable end and the
salvation of Hezekiah (iii. 12-14) as an encouraging pre
cedent of God's help in the time of distressing need, and
closes up his inspired message with joyous hope and un
shaken trust in Providence. It is evident, therefore, that
Habakkuk did not refer to the last invasion under
Nebuchadnezzar, but to an invasion prior to this, one which
did not result in the overthrow of the Kingdom of Judah.
This could be either in the time of King Jehoiakin (2 Kings
xxiv.), in the fourth year of his reign, or in the time of
Manassah, in the year 677 B. C, when Esarhaddon, the
Asnapper of the Ezra book (Ezra iv. 10), being king of both
Assyria and Babylonia, invaded Palestine, placed foreign
colonies in Samaria (2 Kings xvii. 24), defeated the army of
Manassah and sent him in chains a captive to Babel. The
latter date is most likely. For Habakkuk speaks distinctly
of a prevailing idolatry in Judah (ii. 19), which certainly
had no existence in the land after King Joshiah's thorough
reforms, so that both Kings and Chronicles denounce the
successors of Joshiah as wicked kings, but not as idolaters,
nor does the prophet Jeremiah speak of any prevailing idol
atry at any time after the Joshiah reformation. The visions
of Ezekiel refer to the time of Manassah and Amon. It is
safe, therefore, to place the prophecy of Habakkuk between
680 and 677 B. C.
11. Zephaniah, whose book consists also of three chap
ters, fifty-three verses, informs us (i. 1) that he prophesied
in the time of King Joshiah, after the destruction of Nineveh
in 612 B. C. (ii. 13-15). Idolatry had disappeared from
the public places, only the " remains " thereof among the
higher aristocracy, including the princes and the king's sons,
were left. The ex-priests of Baal are mentioned by them
with equal reverence with the Kohanim, the priests of the

Pronaos to Holy Writ. 77
temple. " Upon the roofs " of their private houses only they
bow down to the host of heaven, and in their private parlance
they swear by the name of God and their chief idol. They
are the class that deserted God, or that never sought to know
him or inquire of him (Zephaniah i. 4-8) ; or the class
that did not believe in the prophets and would not inquire
of them. The principal persons accused of wickedness and
corruption are the Saarim, "princes," and the sons of the
king, " that leap on the threshold," are the frequent visitors
in the royal palace and " fill their master's house ¦with violence
and deceit." The master's house in this case is evidently
the king's palace, as the term master in the Hebrew is in the
plural number (as in Genesis xiii. 30). All this points to
the last days of King Joshiah, as is evident from the youth
of his immediate successors as well as by a careful compar
ison of 2 Kings xxiii. 26-28; 2 Chronicles xxxvi. 27, to
Josephus' Antiquities X. v. 1, and Talmud Shabbath 40 and
Thanith 22, which shows that the king in the last years of
his government was not as pious a ruler as in former years.
Zephaniah gives as the cause of this change the princes and
the sons of the king. The last year of Joshiah being 610
B. C, it is evident that Zephaniah prophesied and wrote 612
to 610 B. C. He was a senior cotemporary of Jeremiah.
12. Obadiah, of whom we possess one message of twenty-
one verses against Edom, is identified in the Talmud with
the Obadiah in the time of Ahab (1 Kings xviii. 3),* Abra
ham Ibn Ezra raises objections to this identity, and places
this Obadiah in the time of Nebuchadnezzar, which is sup
ported by internal evidence. For the diction of Obadiah is
not the poetic, artistical style of Isaiah ; it is in meter and
metaphor much more like Jeremiah. The whole speech
prophesies the downfall of Edom and the final triumph of
Mount Zion.f It is no longer Zion in its glory and its
* He may be identical with the Levite Obadiah from the fourth
year of Joshiah (2 Chron. xxxiv. 12).
tSee also Lamentations iv. 21, 22, which seems to be the text to
Obadiah's speech.

78 The Later Prophets.
power — it is Mount Zion, which " ¦will be holy " when " the
house of Jacob shall again possess their possession " (verse
17). Edom is still powerful and prosperous (verses 3 and
4), it possesses yet its rock-bound capital (verse 3), has yet
its savants, sages and heroes (verses 8 and 9). Evil is pre
dicted to the dominion of Esau : " For thy violence against
thy brother Jacob, shame shall cover thee and thou shalt be
cut off forever" (verse 10). And now follows the specifica
tion of that violence (verses 11-14) :
" On the day that thou stoodst on the other side, on the
day that strangers carried away captive his army, and for
eigners entered into his gates, and cast lots over Jerusalem,
also thou wast as any one of them. But thou shouldst not
have looked on (pleased) at the day of thy brother, on the
day that he was delivered up to strangers ; neither shouldst
thou have rejoiced over the children of Judah on the day of
their destruction ; nor shouldst thou have spoken proudly
on the day of distress. Thou shouldst not have entered
into the gate of my people on the day of their calamity ;
yea, thou shouldst not have looked (pleased) on their afflic
tion on the day of their calamity ; nor have laid hands on
their army on the day of their calamity. Neither shouldst
thou have stood in the crossway, to cut off those of his that
did escape ; neither shouldst thou have delivered up those
of his that did remain on the day of distress."
No such a time of extreme calamity to Jerusalem and
Judah is recorded in history prior to the destruction of the
city by the host of Nebuchadnezzar. It is evident, there
fore, that Obadiah prophesied the downfall of Edom after
the destruction of Jerusalem, 586 B. C, although the pro
phecy was fulfilled four and a half centuries later under
John Hyrcan. It is no less e^vident, as in the case of Nahum,
that the prophet did speak shortly after the catastrophe, as
he knew all the particulars of Edom's wrongs perpetrated
on Jerusalem and Judah in that catastrophe.
13. Jeremiah, son of Hilkiah, a priest from the priestly
city of Anatoth, in Benjamin, northwest of Jerusalem and
¦within ten miles of it, was the inspired patriot of a heroic

Pronaos to Holy Writ. 79
age. From the Tigris to the Nile all countries were in a
state of turmoil and incessant warfare — offensive and defen
sive. Palestine and Phoenicia were the special objects of
contention between the two powers, Egypt on the west and
Babylon-Assyria on the east. Independence of any nation
ality between these two countries had become impossible ;
every one of them had to submit, either to Egypt or to
Babylonia. The land of Judah, from and after the capture
of King Manassah, had been subject to the eastern empire,
and remained in this state of dependency, also, after the
restoration of Manassah, under Amon and Joshiah, with
whose death the active hostilities of those two empires re
opened, and ended for Judah with the memorable catastrophe
of Jerusalem's destruction and Judah's exile to Babylonia,
675-586 B. C. Jeremiah's prophecies began with the thir
teenth year of the reign of Joshiah, which was 631 or 630
B. C. ; the year can not be exactly fixed. The first reforms
of Joshiah occurred (2 Chronicles xxxiv. 3) in the twelfth
year of that king's reign, hence, simultaneously with Jere
miah's first prophetical speeches. Joshiah's first reforms
could naturally extend only to Jerusalem, and culminated
in the renovation of the temple, and the finding of the origi
nal copy of the Book of the Covenant (2 Chronicles xxxiv.
14) ; and then his second reforms, in the eighteenth year of
his reign, or shortly thereafter, extended to the country and
the territory of the Kingdom of Israel. This invasion of
the northern kingdom could certainly not have occurred as
long as Assyria was in its full power ; hence it must be
placed after the fifteenth year of Joshiah's reign, when
Nabopolassar rebelled against the King of Assyria, and
made himself King of Babylon. This again culminated in
his third reform, the great Passover celebration, in which it
is maintained (2 Kings xxiii. 21; 2 Chronicles xxxv. 18)
all Judah, the remaining multitude of Israel and the inhabi
tants of Jerusalem tdok part. Jeremiah's name is not men
tioned in connection with any of these reforms, nor does he
anywhere identify himself with them. When the Book of the
Covenant was found in the temple the king inquired of the

80 The Later Prophets.
prophetess Huldah, and not of Jeremiah, whether the punish
ment predicted in it would be inflicted on Judah; hence
Jeremiah's authority was not yet established. He must
have preached for some time in Anatoth (Jeremiah xi. 21,
22; xii. 5, 6) before he went to Jerusalem (ibid. ii. 2), and
his first speech there (ii. 2 to iii. 5) was evidently made after
the death of Joshiah (ii. 17, 36). It appears, therefore, cer
tain that the reform of King Joshiah and the discovery of
the original Book of the Covenant fired the soul of that
young priest to prophetical inspiration, and he preached and
prophesied entirely in the spirit of that reformation and on
the principles of that Book of the Covenant, without being
an acknowledged authority among the numerous true and
false prophets of those days.* His authority grew after the
death of Joshiah, when the reaction set in, and corruption
and demoralization increased with the growing power of the
foreign potentate, as patriotism, self-reliance and faith in
Providence decreased. It seems he was not generally ac
knowledged as a true prophet prior to the catastrophe, when
his predictions had been so terribly fulfilled. Then, and
perhaps as late as 550 B. C. (Jere. lii. 32), his manuscripts
were collected and connected in a Book of Jeremiah. The
compiler may have been Baruch, the scribe of Jeremiah, or
the liberated King of Judah himself. His prophecies became
then the pillar of hope to the exiled (2 Chronicles xxx-vi.
21, 22; Daniel ix. 2), and roused that hopeful and joyful
enthusiasm which re-echoes in the Deutro-Isaiah, Haggai,
Zachariah, Zerubabel and Joshiah, the high priest.
14. The Book of Jeremiah is before us in fifty-two chap
ters (modern division), thirty-one Sedarim (ancient divis-
*The supposition that then and there Deuteronomy was forged
upon the name of Moses is as contrary to the historical sources,
which plainly and repeatedly state, that it was the " Book of the
Covenant" which was found in the sanctuary, as is that other
hypothesis which gives to Jeremiah the authorship of Deuter
onomy ; both are the illegitimate products of those who were mis
guided by the prior hypothesis, that Moses could not be the author
of the Pentateuch.

Pronaos to Holy Writ. 81
ion), 1,365 verses, the middle of which is xxviii. 11. The
fifty-first chapter closes : " Till here are the words of Jere
miah," while the fifty-second chapter is an addendum, part
of which is taken literally from the closing chapters of
Kings, omitting the story of Gedaliah, which is narrated at
length in Jeremiah xli. That it was taken from Kings, and
not vice versa, is proved by the corrections in Jeremiah. But
the closing passage concerning the release of King Jehoiachin
from prison was copied from Jeremiah into Kings. This
seems to confirm the hypothesis that this King was the
compiler of the Jeremiah prophecies. The body of the book
contains three elements, viz., admonitions, predictions and
cotemporary history. The admonitions are all of the same
character, the people, priests, princes and kings are forcibly
reminded to submit to the Thorah, the law of God, and be
saved in the coming catastrophe, or disobey and perish
under the coming wrath. The prophet is fully convinced
that the punishment is sure to come. His predictions are
no less categoric. He spoke invariably the same : " You
submit to the dominion of Nebuchadnezzar and save your
lives, country, city and temple from destruction, or you
resist and lose everything. Babel will fall and Babylonia
will be dissolved. Egypt also will perish ; so will Philistia,
Tyre and Zidon, Moab, Ammon, Edom and Damascus.
Then Judah and Israel may regain their independence,
former splendor and power, if you only hold fast to your
God and his Thorah, adhere to your cause and the divine
covenant. But even if you remain rebelUous and lose every
thing, the nation and its cause will not perish. After seventy
years your offspring will return to their country and con
tinue the preservation of your nationality and your cause
as better men and women than their rebellious ancestors."
In the midst of all distress and calamity Jeremiah ceased
not to predict a gracious future for coming generations in
Israel, which will outlive all its mighty adversaries ; and in
all that, in the threatened punishment and promising future,
Jeremiah only enlarged on the predictions of Moses (Deut.
xxviii. to xxxii. and Leviticus xxvi.), whose words, phrases,

82 The Later Prophets.
doctrines and precepts fall continually from the lips of
Jeremiah. His diction and rhythm are original, having
nothing in common with the poetical sublimity, beauty and
polish of the Isaiah period, or with the Samuel school.
Speaking continually of facts which exist or are to come,
and hurried by a rush of exciting events and calamitous and
terror-striking emergencies, Jeremiah speaks evidently with
out besto'ndng any care on the form, " as God put it into his
mouth," yet at times loftily poetical. He quotes from
older prophets or imitates frequently more ancient phrases,
as we shall show elsewhere. Still, in the main he speaks
like a disciple of Moses, without, however, the brevity and
conciseness of Moses, so that Rabbi Judan beii Simon (in
Pesikta Rabbathi) could maintain Jeremiah was a prophet
like Moses in admonitions, and some critics suspect him to
be the author of Deuteronomy, although it is of an entirely
diff'erent spirit, form, contents and diction, except perhaps
Deuter. xxviii. ; and this is too frequently used by Ezekiel to
be the work of Jeremiah.
15. The most remarkable imitation occurs in Jeremiah
xlix. 7-22, where the prophecy of Obadiah is transcribed
and enlarged upon. It can not well be maintained that Oba
diah imitated Jeremiah, for if so, his one-chapter speech
would certainly not have been accepted among the minor
prophets compiled some time after the Jeremiah book. Be
sides, all the prophecies to the Gentiles from Jeremiah xlvi.
to 1. are of a different cast. They are more compact, betray
less excitement, and are full of consolation to Israel and
Judah. However, being in tone and spirit of the same cast
¦with his other speeches, it proves only that they were writ
ten after the destruction of Jerusalem, after the prophet's re
turn from Egypt, when his mind was calmer than it was dur
ing the war, and, all being lost, he had retired from public
life (except chapter li., which he wrote in the fourth year of
Zedekiah), to write his last prophecies in some retired and
isolated spot, far away from the turmoils of life. Passages
like chapter x., supposed to be imitations of Deutro-Isaiah,
are certainly original with Jeremiah and imitated by the

Pronaos to Holy Writ. 83
Deutro-Isaiah, who succeeded him in time. The variations
in the Greek translation embodied in the Septuagint prove
nothing against the authenticity of the Massoretic text, as
the Septuagint was several times remanipulated, and could
also be accounted for by the presumption that the translator
had before him the defective copy of an unknown and unau
thorized compiler. It is, therefore, safe to maintain that
Jeremiah wrote and spoke between 630 and 580 B. C, and
his productions were compiled 550 B. C. in one volume, as
is now before us in the Book of Jeremiah. It is evident
from the numerous Massoretic annotations in this book,
more than in any other, that nothing was changed in the
original manuscripts by the compiler. The exactness and
truth, also, of the contemporary history recorded in the
book testify to its authenticity.
16. The Book of Jonah is before us in four chapters (mod
ern division), forty-eight verses. Jonah (Yonah), son of
Amithai, is the name of a prophet from Gath-Hepher, in
Zebulon, who flourished in the earlier days of Jeroboam IL,
812 B. C, and prophesied the victories which this king
achieved (2 Kings xiv. 25). It is possible enough that this
prophet went on a divine mission from Samaria to Nineveh,
preached there repentance and moved the heathen (and
Hebrew ?) population of that ancient capital to penance and
reformation, and that this story was preserved traditionally
in Israel, especially because at home the prophet did not
succeed in the same kind of work. But it is not probable
that the same prophet was the author of the Book of Jonah.
It contains terms and phrases of much later Hebrew. The
prayer of Jonah in chapter ii. is mostly an imitation of other
Bible passages.* The idea of a prophet attempting to
escape from before God is taken from Jeremiah, who assid
uously attempted not to prophesy and to speak in the name
of God, and did not succeed (Jeremiah xx. 7-18) ; the idea
is allegorized in Jonah, and the irresistible force in the soul
*The whale is not mentioned in the original, it is a " large fish,''
of which the Septuagint and Josephus made a whale.

84 The Later Prophets.
of Jeremiah, compelling him to speak, is represented here
by the storm and the fish which swallows Jonah. Also the
idea that God would forgive the penitent sinners, the pun
ishment would not overtake them, and the prophet would
appear a false prophet, is outlined in Jeremiah (xxviii. 5-9).
So is Jonah iv. 3, 8 almost literally from Jeremiah, so that
there can be hardly any doubt left that the Book of Jonah
was written after Jeremiah. Other ideas contained in this
book point distinctly to the cosmopolitan time which had
its start^in the exile. God cares also for the sinful heathens,
and extends his mercy to them. God's mercy extends even
to the cattle of Nineveh. God forgives the penitent without
any sacrifices or intercession. The heathens are even better
than the Israelites who would not listen to the admonitions
of their prophets. The office of the prophet is not to work
miracles and to prophesy ; it is to announce the will of God
to his erring children. Conceptions like these will fit only
into that century, and are worthy ofthe prophet in whatever
form he expressed them — in legend, allegory, myth or fable.
The book could not have been written much later, as it was
accepted in the Propheticel canon, and its author constantly
uses the tetragrammaton. It was evidently not written after
the close of the prophetical era. It is safe, therefore, to
maintain that the Book of Jonah was written about 540 B. C.
Its pseudonymous author elaborating the Jonah tradi
tion, must have been one of the Hebrew exiles in Assyria, as
his diction is foreign, he knows more of Nineveh than of Pal
estine, and calls himself an Ibri, a Hebrew, as none either
in Judah or in Israel called himself. It is evident from Eze
kiel that in his time a great revival of faith took place
among the Assyrian exiles. It was to them that Jonah
preached this divine message on the efficacy of repentance,
as a continuation of Ezekiel's message to them. (See Eze
kiel XX.)
17. Ezekiel (Yechezkel), the son of Busi, a priest dwelling
in a colony of the exiles on the Chebar River, east of the
Euphrates, then belonging to the land of the Chaldeans, was
the only prophet ofthe period ofthe Babylonian exile. His

Pronaos to Holy Writ. 85
prophecies were collected and compiled in one book by the
Men of the Great Synod, a century or longer after his demise.
For this Synod was instituted by Ezra about 445 B. C, con
tinued its existence to at least 300 B. C, as Simeon the Just,
who died 292 B. C, was its last President. If Ezekiel was
thirty years old in the fifth year of King Jehoiachin's cap
tivity (Ezekiel i. 1, 2), 592 B. C. and lived forty years there
after, he must have died 552 B. C. These dates, however,
are uncertain. The prophet may have had this vision on
Chebar River after he had lived thirty years in that colony,
may have prophesied prior to that in the twenty-seventh year
of his stay among the exiles (Ezekiel xxix. 17), and may have
been well advanced in age when he had that great vision of
the throne of God, by which he considered himself initiated
in the highest prophetical degree. The fourteenth year after
the destruction of Jerusalem (Ezekiel xi. 1) may have been
his last prophecy, and mark, also, the last year of his life, 572
B. C. This date seems to be correct, for he says nothing of
the liberation of King Jehoiachin, which occurred about 561
B. C, and produced a thorough change in the condition of
the exiles, one which the patriotic prophet could not possibly
leave unnoticed. He speaks of no king of Babylon besides
Nebuchadnezzar, refers to nothing which transpired in the
last decade of this king's reign, and sees his own people only
in a state of despair, as they must have been in the decades
immediately after the destruction of Jerusalem. Therefore, if
we presume that Ezekiel lived his threescore and ten, it is
safe to place him from 640 to 572 B. C. He migrated, per
haps voluntarily, to the Chebar River in the eighteenth year
of King Joshiah, and in the thirtieth year of his abode
there, which is in the fifth year of King Jehoiachin's captiv
ity (see Rashi to Ezekiel i. 2), he began his prophetical ca
reer, about 592 B. C, when about forty-four years old.*
*According to Seder Olam (Rashi to Ezekiel) the eighteenth year
of King Joshiah was the jubilee year, therefore Ezekiel dates from
that year. He mentions the jubilee year also in chapter xl'vd.
7, as imn nJB' exactly in the sense of Moses.

86 The Later Prophets.
18. The book of Ezekiel is before us in forty-eight chap
ters (modern division), twenty-nine Sedarim (ancient divis
ion), 1,273 verses, the middle of which is xxvi. 10. Dates
are at the head of some chapters from the fifth to the twenty-
fifth year of the captivity of King Jehoiakim. In diction
and the main subjects of prophecy it is like the Book of
Jeremiah, with some Aramisms which betray its author's
residence in the land of the Chaldeans. The latter is also
the case with the allegories of his visions, especially his
descriptions of the throne of God, which, in addition to the
original (Isaiah vi.), are refiexes of Chaldean astrological
conceptions. He is unlike Jeremiah in his originality ; be
sides Moses, he imitates none. He wrote like one who knew
no literature besides the books of Moses. He knows Noah,
Job and Daniel as righteous men (xiv. 18, 19), the latter
also as a wise man (xxviii. 3), but betrays no knowledge of
a book of either Job or Daniel. He elaborates the same
ideas (ii. and in. 8-10) with Jeremiah i. on entering the
prophetical office and his unwillingness to prophesy (iii.
11-15) like Jeremiah, but shows no further acquaintance
with his older cotemporary's literary productions. He refers
(vi. 5) to King Joshiah's work at the altar of Beth-El, from
memory, it appears. Except his last prophecy on Seir (xxxv.),
which sounds like Jeremiah's and Obadiah's in the main, he
evinces no knowledge of any literature except the books of
Moses. He not only reproduces largely terms, phrases and
sentences peculiar to Moses, but amplifies laws of Moses and
expounds them at length in the very phraseology of Moses.
So, for instance, iii. 16-21, he advances the idea of the
Zopheh's, or prophet's responsibility for the well-being of the
congregation, which is an amplification of Deuteronomy
xiii. 2-6 and xviii. 15-22. Again, Ezekiel xiv. and xviii. are
amplifications of Deuteronomy xxiv. 16, in connection with
Exodus xxxiv. 5-7 and Numbers xiv. 19-20. Again, Ezekiel
xxxvi. is a reproduction of the above chapters, and all four
of them are completely in the phraseology of Moses. It
appears that the prophet, far away from his home, had no
other literature of Israel at his command. His thorough

Pronaos to Holy Writ. 87
knowledge, however, of the nations from Ethiopia to the
Caspian Sea and the Hindus River, their history, political
conditions, industries, commerce and products of the soil
(for instance, chapters xxvii. and xxviii.) is plain evidence
of his vast information and access to the world's literature,
such as no other writer of those days does show, not even
Herodotus and Xenophon in the century after Ezekiel.
Judging Ezekiel from the poetical standpoint his affluence
of words and metaphors is admirable. His allegories and
symbols are frequently most sublime, although in several
instances grotesque and even coarse, as in chapter iv. He
speaks, more than any other of the prophets, like a teacher
rather than an orator, so that it seems that teaching was his
profession in the colony. Judging him from the ethical and
national standpoint, Ezekiel occupies the highest position
among the great prophets. Among a people inclined to
Paganism, with causes then deemed sufficient to doubt their
God's power and willingness to save them, and, stunned by the
nation's downfall, given to despair, ready to yield to the
victor's faith and wisdom, Ezekiel rises like a pillar of fire
on a dark night, a mighty and successful pleader of Israel's
imperishable cause and God's inviolable promises, a terror
to the wicked and wickedness, a reviving sunshine and
refreshing shower to the moral sentiments, the national faith
and hope, and he did resurrect the dead in the valley of
Dura. In that chapter (xxxvii.) he merely describes his
mission and his work.
19. The book of Ezekiel contains three distinct parts :
(1) from chapters i. to xxiv. ; (2) chapters xxv. to xxxix. ;
and (3) from chapters xxxix. to xlviii. In the first part he
prophesies, in substance the same as Jeremiah, the approach
ing end of the kingdom of Judah either by submission to
Nebuchadnezzar or by utter destruction and exile, always
maintaining that the end is not the final end, but is to lead
to a higher state of national life and prosperity after the
sins shall be expiated by the national sufferings ; also always
maintaining that the righteous and the penitent shall not
perish in the catastrophe. In the second part he is the

88 The Later Prophets.
prophet of consolation; the trumpet of resurrection, the
comforter and harbinger of glad tidings to his people, the
pleader of Israel and the advocate of God's tender mercies.
All his messages to the Gentiles, including the " Gog " pro
phecies in chapters thirty-eight and thirty-nine, have the
same object in view as with Jeremiah. They are to announce
that all those nations and governments, however mighty and
¦vigorous, will perish, and Israel in consequence of the cove
nant will outlive them ; that the name of God be proclaimed
and hallowed by them.* A special feature of Ezekiel's work
is his teaching among the exiled Israelites from the Northern
kingdom. It seems that the Thei Abib colony was com
posed of the older Assyrian exiles from the Kingdom of
Israel and the later emigrants from the Kingdom of Judah.
The elders of Israel, like the elders of Judah, come to the
prophet to seek instruction (Ezekiel xiii. 24; xx. 1). He
announces to them the divine oracles, pleads their cause,
prophesies salvation to them, predicts their reunion with
Judah, sees the land of Israel repopulated and prosperous
(chapter thirty-six) and knows of no distinction any longer
between the two kingdoms (chapter thirty-seven). In the
third part, Ezekiel lays down a plan for a new temple,
service, city and geographical division of the whole land of
Palestine, for the twelve tribes, retaining the sacrificial polity
and Levitical priesthood of Moses with some minor changes,
and changing entirely the old division of the land, f This
document and, it appears, the whole of Ezekiel was un
known to Zerubabel, and it appears also to Ezra, as none of
those provisions were adopted in the second temple and
commonwealth. Like other prophets, Ezekiel's authority
* The " Gog " prophecy is in substance no more than an amplifica
tion of Jeremiah xxx. 10, 11, whether he did or did not think of the
Scythians. t It did not appear to Ezekiel or to the other prophets that the
Mosaic provisions for the sacrificial polity were originally intended
to be unalterable, or else he could not have proposed changes as
he did.

Pronaos to Holy Writ. 89
during his lifetime was but local ; he was one among many
cotemporary prophets (Ezekiel xiii. and xx. 25). It was
difficult to distinguish the true from the false prophet. In
his locality, it appears from the general tone of his speeches,
and especially from xii. 27 and xxi. 5, he met with many
unbelievers. Besides, Ezekiel never left the colony, and
this was too far from Babel to be known there. His name
is not mentioned in any other book besides his own. So it
appears certain that the prophecies of Ezekiel were not
generally known before the Men of the Great Synod, per
haps after the death of Ezra and Nehemiah, collected and
compiled the manuscripts in the present book. Centuries
later, it is reported in the Talmud (Shabbath 136), the
learned men wanted to take the Book of Ezekiel out of the
Canon, " Because his words contradict the words of the
Thorah." * This contradiction can refer to Ezekiel's third
part only, as in all his other prophecies he re-echoes Moses,
and often literally. Ezekiel's temple, city and division of
the land were intended for the reunited twelve tribes, which
did not came to pass prior to the victories of Alexander
the Great.
20. Three prophets of whom literary productions are extant
appear in Israel's history after the return from the Babylon
ian captivity, Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi. Their com
mon sepulcher on Mount Olivet, near Jerusalem, is yet
venerated by the men of the three monotheistic religions.
With these three hesperi closes the prophetical Canon, and
also the code of the Twelve Minor Prophets, the fourth book
of Later Prophets, which contains the prophecies of twelve
prophets, divided, like Isaiah, into sixty-six chapters, one
thousand and fifty verses. The Talmudical tradition reports
many prophets coming back from Babylonia with Zerubabel
and with Ezra, who were members of the Great Synod. Pro
phets are mentioned also in Nehemiah, together with the
* One Hananiah ben Hezekiah saved the book and the honor of
the prophet.

90 The Later Prophets.
prophetess Noadiah (vi. 7, 14)*. Besides those three and
this prophetess, none is mentioned by name in Scriptures.
In the historical sources Haggai and Zechariah only are
named (Ezra v. 1). Malachi appears nowhere outside of
his book. The Talmudical tradition, therefore, reports Mal
achi as an appellative, and his proper name as Mordechai,
or Ezra (Meguillah 15), the latter being generally accepted. f
It is maintained, therefore, that ¦with Malachi or Ezra closes
the prophetical millennium beginning with Moses, in round
numbers 1450-450 B. C. This " Twelve Books," according
fo the Talmudical tradition, being written, or rather com
piled, in its present form by the Great Synod, the prophet
ical Canon could not have been completed before the fourth
century B. C.
21. The Book of Haggai (Chaggai), consisting of two
chapters, thirty-eight verses, is dated from the sec ond year
of Darius II. , in the sixth month of that year, the three
oracles respectively the 1st, 21st, and 24th days of that
menth, 519 B. C. He mentions the fact, that the twenty-
fourth day ofthe ninth month, the same year, building on
the temple was resumed (ii. 18). All his oracles except one
passage are admonitions to Zerubabel and Joshua the high
priest to resume work on the temple before permission was
given by Darius II. One passage (ii. 11-13), addressed to
the priests, is casuistic, and sounds like similar passages in
Zendavesta. This may be the reason that Haggai has be-
* Only four prophetesses are named in Scriptures, Miriam, De
borah, Huldah and Noadiah. They belong to four periods of his
tory, and are intended to suggest the principle that in the highest
spiritual sphere also woman always waa the equal of man.
iZebachim 62a it is stated from Mishnath Rabbi Eliezer ben Ja
cob that three prophets came up with them from Babylon, one to
testify to the exact spot where the altar was, another to testify
that sacrifices might be offered up before the temple was built,
and a third one to sanction the re-writing of the Thorah in the
Assyrian characters (as it now is). No names are given there, al
though it appears that the two former were Haggai and Zecha
riah and the latter Malachi or Ezra himself.

Pronaos to Holy Writ. 91
come so prominent in the Talmudical traditions, more so
than his contemporaries (Yebamoth 16; Kiddushin 42).
There can be no doubt as to the literal authenticity of this
book, although its diction, rhythm and prophetic address
distinguish its author not from the prophets of the previous
century. 22. The Book of Zechariah (Zecharyah) is before us in
fourteen chapters, 211 verses. He was the son of Berechiah.
from the descendants of Eddo, the prophet. Eddo flourished
in the time of the first Jeroboam and his son, Abiah, in the
tenth century B. C, and could not be the grandfather of
Zechariah in the sixth century, hence we understand that
Eddo was the ancestor by whom his family was distin
guished. It was deemed necessary to add to the prophet's
name, " Son of Eddo, the prophet," because there was
another Zechariah, son of Berechiah (Isaiah viii.), who was
also a prophet (2 Chron. xxvi. 5) inthe time of King Uzziah,
evidently an older contemporary of Isaiah. Zechariah
opens his prophetical career in the same year, and but three
months later than Haggai, continues the same on the
twenty-fourth day of the eleventh month (i. 7) and then
gives us no other date until vii. 1, which is dated the fourth
month ofthe fourth year of Darius, although chapter vii.
was certainly written after the rebuilding of the temple,
which occurred 515 B. C. Thus we know that his prophetical
time was but five years, 519 to 515 B. C. The substance of
his oracles is the same as Haggai's, encouraging Zerubabel,
Joshua and the people to complete the sacred structure.
There is also a piece of casuistry in Zechariah (vii. and viii.)
referring to the abolition of the four national fasts. Zecha
riah is more eloquent and poetical than his cotemporary.
He marks the decadence of prophecy into the apocalyptic
¦visions. He is frequently visited and spoken to by angels,
sees allegoric visions which represent no truths in them
selves and become instructive by the explanations only.
With him Satan appears for the first time as a figure of
prophetical vision. The same decadence ofthe prophetical
power as observable from Jeremiah to Ezekiel is observable

92 The Later Prophets.
also from Ezekiel to Zechariah. Haggai speaks more like
Jeremiah; Zechariah betrays the Babylonian influence,
while Haggai speaks like a Palestinean that had not left his
native country — as if the former had been a disciple of
Ezekiel and the latter of Jeremiah. If the same Zechariah
wrote also the fourteenth chapter of this book — which is
doubtful — then he may certainly be taken as a disciple of
Ezekiel. For this chapter xiv. is in substance identical
with Ezekiel's Gog prophecy (chapters xxxviii. and xxxix.)
If one takes with this the Book of Daniel, he can clearly
conceive that the apocalypsis, in which finally the ancient
spirit of prophecy is submerged, is of Babylonian origin ; the
Hebrew and the Chaldean geniuses interwoven produced
this new phenomenon, as in later days the conflict of the
Hebrew and the Greek geniuses produced other phenomena,
and foreign to both. It is also well to bear in mind that —
what is so frequently noticed in the Talmud — with these
last prophets begins the era of casuistry. The prophet's in
tuitively productive mind having lost most of its buoyancy,
comes down to discursive reasoning, as we will see especially
in Malachi, and ends in casuistry.
2'3. The five chapters of Zechariah from ix. to xiii. are
certainly not the production of the post-exilic Zechariah.
They begin in two instances with Massa (ix. and xii.), like
Isaiah and his immediate successors, announcing divine
oracles to the Gentiles ; and this prophet addresses his first
Massa to Syria, and the second to Israel, then the enemies
of Jerusalem and Judah. This points at once to the in
vasion by Pekah and Rezin in the time of King Ahaz. He
speaks of no enemies besides those coming from Sjnria,
Tyre, Zidon, Philistia and the Greek slave-traders (ix. 2, 5,
6, 13), as did also Joel (see above, chapter iv. 3, c.) No
Assyrian, no Babylonian, no Egyptian enemy, not even
hostile Edom, Ammon and Moab, are known to the prophet,
fexactly as in the days of Joel. He speaks of the Kingdom
of Ephraim and Joseph (ix. 10; x. 6) as a living reality. He
knows no Hebrew exiles in Assyria, except those from the
East Jordan land and the Lebanon, and a few of them in

Pronaos to Holy Writ. 93
Egypt, when both these countries are still in their power
and glory (x. 10, 11). He speaks of three shepherds being
vanquished in one month, which could refer only to Ahaz,
Pekah and Rezin (xi. 8, 9). He describes the prophets with
the hoary garments and "wounds between their hands"
(xiii. 3-6), not as they did appear at any time after,
but as they appear prior to the exile, in the days
of Elijah and EUshah, and contemns them exactly as
did Michah (iii. 5-7). He calls the T^ninces Alluphei Jehudah,
and after the captivity they were called Chorim, Seganim,
never Alluphim. He speaks of the Crown Prince Hezekiah
(ix. 9) as did Michah in his time (v. 1-3), and changes
Michah's Ki attoh yigdal ad Aphsei Aretz into Umoshelo miyam
ad yam, etc., which means the same.* Besides all this the
diction, rhythm, phraseology and prophetical buoyancy in
these five chapters are entirely different from the Zechariah
style, and sound fully like the classical Isaiah time. It
seems, therefore, evident that these five chapters belong to
the earlier Zechariah, son of Berachiah, mentioned in Isaiah
and Chronicles, and were attached to the second Zechariah
by mistake, as was attached the second Isaiah to the first,
not by the compilers ofthe Canon, but by later transcribers.
24. Malachi is before us in three chapters of fifty-five
verses. With him begins the polemic dialogue against
skepticism, so well perfected in Job and Ecclesiastes.
It sounds like a distant echo from the prophetical cata
ract. The temple is built, all its institutions are there;
*'Vehibbitu aili eth asher dakaru xii. 10 refers to to the Yosheb
Yerusholaim in the same verse, therefore he changed the aili into
eilav. In verse eleven the prophet speaks of the mourning over
Hadadrimon in the valley of Megidon. This ceremony identical with
that mentioned in Ezekiel xii. 11, the women of Jerusalem wept over
the sungod Tammuz, and Hadadrimon being identical with Hadad,
the sungod of the North Syrian tribes, could not possibly have been
observed in the valley of Megido in the time of Zechariah, when all
paganism had disappeared in Judah . It is distinct reference to an
older Zechariah, when such pagan practices still could be imagined
as existent in Judah.

94 The Later Prophets.
they are already old and damaged by the neglect and skep
ticism of the priests and corruption among the people. He
begins with an old Massa once addressed to Israel and
Edom (i. 1-5), which is his text, basing upon which he
conducts his polemics against the levity and corruption of
priest and people.
He describes the ideal priest (ii. 4-8) and compares with
him the low and despised priesthood of that day. He
threatens them with the sudden approach of the master in
his palace, whom he calls the angel or messenger of the
covenant, and considers himself the forerunner of him who
will purify the palace and its servants. In the thirty-second
year of Artaxerxes Longimanus, Nehemiah returned to
Susa, and remained there nine years. He returned to
Jerusalem and found everything in a state of anarchy
(Nehemiah xiii.). He enforced again the Law and the Ezra
reforms with his own, described vividly in the closing chap
ter of Nehemiah. Shortly before the return of Nehemiah
to Jerusalem Malachi must have delivered his incisive dis
courses. If Nehemiah came first to Jerusalem in 445 B. C,
remained there twelve years, and then again nine years in
Susa, he came the second time to- Jerusalem 424 B. C, after
the death of Artaxerxes. Then Malachi must have spoken,
in the years 426 and 425 B. C, the last echoes from the
prophetical lyre. The closing verses of this book (iii. 22-
24), it is maintained, are the solemn words ofthe compilers
of the prophetical Canon, to connect all with the Thorah of
Moses which God commanded him at Horeb for all Israel,
and to remind the reader that zealous prophets like Elijah
always came and always will come to bring back to God the
hearts of the parents with the children. That is to say, the
right man in proper time always appeared, and always will
appear, to enforce the Thorah of Moses. This refers princi
pally to the regular and uninterrupted succession of
prophets from Moses to Malachi, one thousand years and
more of prophetical inspiration.

CHAPTER V.
hagiography.
THE nine (or thirteen) books of Scriptures called " Hagi
ography," or sacred writing, mentioned as such in
the translator's introduction to Ben Sirah's book and in
Josephus, are called in the Talmud plainly D'^inD writ
ings or scriptures, and in the later Hebrew works *3nD
dip holy writings or holy scriptures, and it is maintained
trnpn mm 11Z:NJ D^mriD " These writings were said
(or written) under the influence of the holy spirit." This
is the degree inferior to the nine degrees of prophecy. In
none of these books is it stated that God said or spoke to
the poet or commanded him, except in Job, and in Daniel
which is apocalyptic, angels take the place of the voice of
God. Psalms, Song of Songs and Lamentations are purely
lyric; Proverbs, Job and Ecclesiastes (also some Psalms)
are didactic; Ruth, Esther, Ezra, Nehemiah and Chronicles
are historiographic, without any attempt or even pretension
at prophecy. In the first Christian century some of the
Rabbis proposed to take out of the Canon Proverbs, Song of
Songs, Ecclesiastes and Esther, but did not succeed, as was
the case also with the Book of Ezekiel. The three books of
Psalms, Proverbs and Job, called by the Massorites n'O'N
in reversed order, the initial letters of Thillim, Mibhlei and
lyob — are provided with signs of accentuation different
from other books of the Bible, which point to a chant in
ancient time peculiar to these books, as they are also dif
ferent in rhythm and parallelism, being regularly divided
in verses of two or three parallel lines, each line of three or
four words, exceptionally of two or five words.
2. The five books of Psalms are five collections made at
diff'erent times. The last compiler, connecting the five into

96 Hagiography.
one book, did not obliterate the conclusion of each book,
nor did he make any other changes in the text. This last
compilation appears to have been accomplished in the time
of the Maccabean prince and high priest Simon. Each book
except the first contains psalms of different poets and
anonymous hymns, without reference to chronology, from
David, or even Moses (Psalm xc), down to the Maccabean
age (ibid, cxviii.). The first book, with the exception of
the four anonymous psalms, i., ii., x. and xxxii., are all
ascribed, or inscribed, to David. The second book opens
with eight psalms of the sons of Korah, followed by one of
Asaph, then follow again Davidian psalms from Psalm 1. to
Ixx., with one anonymous psalm (Ixxi.), which appears to
belong to the previous one, closing with the psalm addressed
to Solomon, the doxology and the remarkable words. " The
prayers of David, son of Jesse, are finished." This state
ment, which was there in most ancient times (Pesachim
117a) shows that the compiler of the second book knew the
first and preceded those of three following books, as in each
there are Davidian psalms. The third book opens with ten
Asaph psalms, followed by two of the. sons of Korah, then
one of David, and two more of the sons of Korah, and
closes with the psalm of Ethan, the Ezrahite, and a simple
doxology. The fourth book consists, besides the prayer of
Moses (xc.) and two psalms of David (ci. and ciii.), of
anonymous psalms exclusively. The fifth book again con
tains fourteen Davidian and one Solomonic among its forty-
eight psalms.
3. The fact that some of the finest psalms are anonymous
— and some of them, like Psalms cxxxv. and cxxxvi., are
evidently very old — proves that the headings were found as
they are by the compilers, who must have verily believed
that those psalms, ascribed or inscribed to David and Solo
mon, were, in fact, their own literary productions, as is cer
tainly the case with Psalm xviii. ; or at least that they were
written by contemporaries of those kings. Fifty-nine head
ings of psalms, also the musical instruments and the close
of chapters are quoted and discussed in the Talmud by

PRbNAos TO Holy Writ. 97
teachers, reaching up into the first Christian century (see
Toldoth Aaron), hence the same headings were there then
as now in the Massoretic Bible. The only diff'erence is that
Psalms was divided then in 147 chapters and now in 150.*
This fact is also apparent in the Shir ham-Maaloth chap
ters (Ps. cxx. to cxxxiv.), five of which are ascribed to
David, one to Solomon, and nine are anonymous. The
same is e^vident from the hallel psalms. These are the
hymns chanted by the Levites in the temple every feast and
new moon day as part of the divine service. All of these
psalms are anonymous, although certainly very old, as the
origin of the custom even is beyond the traditions of the
Hebrews. There are two sets of this hallel, one consisting
of Psalms cxxxv. and cxxxvi., which is called hallel hag-
gadol in the Talmud, " the great or rather the older hallel,"
and the other is called hallel hamitzri, " the lesser or
younger hallel," consisting of Ps. cxiii. to cxviii. A cur
sory inspection of these two hallel convinces the reader
that the second is an elaboration and amplification of the
first and replaced it in the temple service. f
*The reason of this 150 division may have been liturgical, to
finish the whole Psalm book annually twice, reciting one daily.
Sabbath excepted, for which the psalm was specially marked
(Psalm xcii.), making twenty-five every month, and may have been
made at the end of the third century. We know that the Levites
sang daily in the temple the Mizmor shel Yom, " the psalm of the
day" (Mishnah Thamid vii. 4). The particular psalms noted there
may have been taken from an extant list, intended for any par
ticular week. Traces of the group of five are still there, as, for
instance, the Shigayou Psalm v., the Lammdh Psalm x., the five
festive hallel Psalms cxiii.-cxvii. (cxviii. was added later), the five
anonymous Lechu Nerannenah hymns xcv.-xcix., the fifteen Shir
ham Maaloth hymns cxx.-cxxxiv., and the five Hallelujah hymns
closing the whole book. It is custom yet with many to read five
psalms daily, except on Sabbath, for which was made a special
collection. 1 1 Chronicles xvi. 8-36, identical with Psalms cv. 1-15 and xcv.
is also an elaboration and amplification of this firat hallel, and is
therefore anonymous in both cases.

98 Hagiography. -
Yet not even the rabbis knew the time of the origin of the
lesser hallel, and diff'er in opinion on the subject from the
time of Moses to the Babylonian exile. (See Talmud in
Pesachim 117 and 118.)* This lesser hallel contains no
reference to any event by which the approximate date of
its origin could be fixed. The older hallel. however,
clearly and distinctly points to the earliest days of the
Hebrews' first commonwealth, to Solomon's temple, or
even to the tabernacle of Shiloh. It is primitive in form
with its unison responses of "His goodness endureth
forever " without including the name of God. It praises
God, without the use of any abstract terms, for his gra,ce
manifested in the creation of the world, the wonders he
wrought for Israel in Egypt, and in the conquest of Sihon
and Og and all Canaan. Then it deprecates idols and
idolatry and admonishes Israel to praise and worship Jeho
vah. The only mention of Zion is in the last verse of the
one hundred and thirty-fifth chapter, and this is also
omitted in the one hundred and thirty-sixth. There is no
mention of any event beyond the conquest of Canaan. The
antiquity of these hallel psalms can not be doubted, and yet
the compilers left them anonymous, as they found them.
No more proof is necessary, all a priori speculations not
withstanding, that the compilers of Psalms invented no
headings ; they found them so and exactly so in the MSS.
which they compiled. The accusation of pious fraud and
pseudonymousness would certainly be in the wrong place
here, where no reason is imaginable inducing anybody to
falsify a religious people's prayers, hymns and anthems,
especially if the best of them are without name or date.
Criticism will have to accept the headings of the Psalms as
genuine and authentic, even if there is a discrepancy in the
heading of Ps.- Ixxxv. Nor is it legitimate to doubt that
King David was the author of Psalms. The poet and musi
cian, as represented by the authors of Nehemiah (xii. 46)
* In Shir Hashirim Babbah ^n SlJOa Ezra is mentioned as one
of the ten authors of Psalms.

Pronaos to Holy Writ. 99
and of Chronicles (1 Chronicles xv. 28 ; 2 Chronicles vii. 6 ;
xxix. 16, 17, and elsewhere), if we know that he surely did
write Ps. xviii. (see 2 Samuel xxii.), and is noticed as the
sacred bard in 2 Samuel xxiii. ; Amos vi. 5 ; Ben Sirah
xlvii. 8-9 ; 2 Maccabees ii. 13, besides 2 Samuel xxii.*
4. The argument that the Psalms were corrected, reshaped
and rewritten by the Menazeach, or " Chief Musician," and
hence that we are not in possession of the original text after
all, does not invalidate their authenticity. For this suspi
cion attaches only to those Psalms which are headed Lam-
nazeach, " to the chief musician," and concerning them we
possess documentary evidence that euphonious changes
only and none of sense or phrase were made, as is the case
also with the Tikkun Sopherim and Ittur Sopherim in the
Thorah. The Menazeach fitted the text to his chorus,
melody or orchestra, which sometimes required rhythmical
or euphonious improvements of the text. By comparing
carefully Psalms xviii. with 2 Samuel xxii. ; Psalms xiv.
and liii. ( or Isaiah xxxvi -xxxviii. with 2 Kings xviii 17 to
XX. 19 ; or 2 Samuel vii. with 1 Chronicles xvii. ; 1 Kings
viii. and 2 Chronicles vi.) ; or the passages in Psalms cxliv.
taken from Psalms xviii., viii. and xl.— and these are actual
cases of transcriptions and no a priori suppositions — faith
ful adherence to the original texts is proved, and the
changes made by the transcribers are without the least
import to the sense of any passage.
5. The various compilers of Psalms evidently betray their
intentions to put together lyric devotional compositions of
former days. The close of the second book offers proof that
it was compiled after the first and before the third. In this

* It is remarkable that Psalms begins with the word *nBX, which
word in the plural and in this sense occurs nowhere in Scriptures
prior to this time, except in the concluding verse of Deuteronomy
(xxxiii. 29), so that Psalms certainly points back to the Thorah.
(See Midrash Thehilim to Psalm cxix.) The same seems to be the
case in Proverbs, which begins 'istW, a word found nowhere iu
Scriptures prior to this time, except in Numbers xxiii. and xxiv.

100 Hagiography.
third book, especially Psalms Ixxiv.* and Ixxix., the
destruction of Jerusalem and the burning of the temple are
noticed, and in the chapter closing this book the end ofthe
Davidian dynasty is lamented ; the throne, like the altar, is
crushed. Although there are in this book, as in every
other, very ancient psalms (Ixxx. to Ixxxviii.), it could not
have been compiled prior to the destruction of Jerusalem.
This, however, shows that the two former books were com
piled prior to that catastrophe. The fourth book ( Psalms
xc. to cvi.) is again a cheerful and joyful collection of
excellent hymns and prayers, entirely diff'erent in tone from
the third book. The compiler tells us in clear words at the
end of his little book that he flourished after the restoration,
evidently in the time df Artaxerxes Longimanus. Although
it is very difficult to show with any degree of certainty that
any psalm was written as late as the time of the Maccabees,
yet the fifth and last book contains, with very ancient
psalms, also the latest compositions of this kind, like the
six hallel psalms. Psalm cxix , which is certainly the text
book from the boys' school, the five closing Hallelujah
psalms, certainly hymns from the second temple, and
others, so that its compilation could not well have been
accomplished long before the Maccabean time, when the
third Canon was fixed. The first two books, however,
belong to Israel's first commonwealth. The first, being the
Davidian psalm book with the loftiest hymns, like Psalms
viii., xix., xxiv., xxix., xxxiii, full of re-echoes from nature's
secret shrine and the spirit of holiness and devotion, is
certainly the oldest. It is completely Jehavistic, while the
second book is mostly Elohistic.f

*Psalm Ixxviii. was certainly written before the exile, aa were
most all chapters of the third collection.
+That the divine names, Jehovah and Elohim, do not point to
different authors or ages, is especially evident from Psalms. The
Davidian Psalms in Book I. are Jehavistic, and in Book IL, with
others, mostly Elohistic. There must be another reason for the
frequency of this or that divine name.

Pronaos to Holy Writ. 101
The masters of song and the musical instruments are dif
ferent in the two books. In Book I. the King is yet called
the Messiah, and David is twice called the servant of the
Lord ; in Book II. there is the King only and no longer
Messiah. Book I. refers continually to the house of the
Lord, to Zion, and to the Thorah, all of which dis
appears in Book II. The hapless Levite (Psalms xiii.
and xliii.) laments his absence and distance from the house
of God, which is far beyond his reach. Book I. mentions
historical events from the advanced age of David, and Book
II. refers only to the earlier days of David. Summing up
these criteria, we can but come to the conclusion that Book
I. was compiled in Judah, when Zion and Moriah were in
their highest glory ; and Book II. was compiled in the King
dom of Israel when its decline had come, mostly from the
products of lamenting Levites, who by the schism of Jero
boam had lost their sacerdotal dignity. The Levites had
their fifty-two cities in Israel, and the priests their thirty-
two cities in Judah (1 Chronicles vi. ). However, there is no
chapter in Book IL that could be proved to reach beyond
the reign of Jeroboam IL, and none in Book I. that reaches
beyond the earlier days of King Solomon. In Book I. are
the main hymns of David, written in his advanced age and
for the use of the Levites in public worship ; therefore the
tetragrammaton is used, as in all other psalms intended
for that purpose. In Book II. are such psalms of David
which he wrote in his younger days, not intended to be re
cited in public worship ;¦ therefore the term Elohim is used
in place of the tetragrammaton. They being omitted in
the first collection, the compiler of the second book added
them to the psalms of the sons of Korah, which are from
the Levites of the Northern Kingdom, and seem to have
been used in the worship at the altars on the Heights,
Bamoth of the faithful, that did not worship at the altars
of Jeroboam. It is safe, therefore, to date the compilation
ofthe five books of Psalms thus :
Book I. 900 B. C.
Book IL 800 B. C.

102 Hagiography.
Book III. 550 B C.
Book IV. 450 B. C.
Book V. 140 B. C, when the present canon was closed.
6. The Book of Psalms, as before us in the Massoretic
text, consists of one hundred and fifty chapters, divided
into 2,527 verses. Psalm Ixxxviii. 36, is marked as half of
the book in the number of verses. These Psalms have
become the substance of the civilized nations' devotional
literature and imposed their phraseology on most all mod
ern languages. They breathe stirring religious inspiration
in the simple, often childlike, language of nature, and give
sympathetic expression to every form of human woe — now
tears crystallized in plaintive words, then soothing consola
tion rising to triumphant hope, and jubilant anthem, soar
ing aloft, with the strains from a heavenly lyre, from the
dark valley of misery to the very throne of the ineff'able
Deity. Words, human language, appear inadequate to the
psalmist to utter the praise aijd glory of the Almighty, and
he invokes all nature, the quick and the dead, to sing and
shout Hallelujah ; all nature is roused from its deathlike
slumber to proclaim aloud the glory of its Maker. It is the
loftiest species of poetry ; the pinions of the highest genius
could soar no higher, and none did, because the ideal of the
psalmist is the most sublime ; few could reach, none sur
pass it. The psalmic tropes, metaphors, similes and para
bles, personifications and apostrophes are linked to nature,
its immutable forms and phenomena ; there is no artificial
imagery in them. Therefore, they are felt and understood
universally, and impress equally forcibly the illiterate child
of nature and the man of culture, if they are not too much
estranged to nature and piety. This is perhaps the main
cause of their universal adoption. Most important, how
ever, is the collection of odes, hymns, didactic poems, Shir,
Michtham and Maskil, as a text-book of theology. It pre
sents to us what those ancient Israelites during a period of
eight centuries beUeved, prayed, hoped, what they sang and
what they felt, how they rejoiced and how they wept; the
soul of a whole people, with all its mysteries, is unveiled

Pronaos to Holy Writ. 103
before our eyes, not in the dry formulas of dogmatics, nor
yet in the abstract definitions of philosophy, but in the
animate and non-dfeceptive language of prayer and adora
tion. 7. The theological doctrine represented in Psalms is
beyond any doubt the religion of the ancient Israel.
Whatever were the laws, rites and cults, and however they
changed, these were the well established and fixed beliefs,
well rooted in the hearts and souls of the people. Reduc
ing these doctrines to principles, which are apparent in all
the oldest and latest psalms, in the prayer of Moses, the
psalms of David, the oldest hallel and the last hallelujah,
we arrive at the following :
(a) The stern and uncompromising monotheism ; it is
the one, and sole God who is worshiped ; no angel, no saint,
no mediator, no savior, no hypostasis, no kind of fetish,
idol, object or force of nature, passion or handiwork of man.
God alone and absolute is the sole object of worship and
adoration, the hope and trust of man, the rock of salvation.
(6) The lofty position ascribed in the dispensations of
Pro^vddence to virtue, righteousness, purity and holiness in
God and man, as the very points in which they meet and
which contain the summum bonum.
(c) The nearness of God to man and man to God, so
that the intimate relations, sympathy and love are but faintly
expressed in the vulgar phrase of the fatherhood of God
and the sonship of man.
(d) Man appears in the brightest sunlight of omni
present Deity, and God is manifested with the most tender
affections — almost too anthropomorphous — of the noblest
humanity. These principles are not given in Psalms as something
new or just discovered ; they are there as old, self-under
stood and universally cherished heritages — the common
good of the common people, Levite, priest, prophet and
prince included. The poet can not sing what the popular
mind has not priorily conceived ; nor does a people pray
what is not rooted in its beUefs. It is evident, therefore.

104 Hagiography.
that these great principles are older, much older than the
oldest psalm ; and that they were always present in the mind
of Israel. It must also be admitted that the pagan worship
and aberrations, which prophets and chroniclers so loudly
bewail and so emphatically condemn, were rebellious ex
ceptions in Israel; and the religion with these principles
was the general rule and state of the people. This brings
us face to face with the question : Where is the source, the
origin of these principles? The Psalms reply for them
selves : the origin is in the Thorah.
8. Proverbs, the second book of Hagiography, called
Mishlei Shelomoh, contains thirty-one chapters and 915
verses, each of two — seldom three — parallel lines of three or
four words, in rhythm and diction like Psalms. It is a com
pilation of didactic poems, some as short as two stanzas.
The substance of these poems is ethical, the ethics of the
Hebrews in the rhythmical form ; the practical philosophy
in the form of popular proverbs, evidently intended to be
committed to memory, especially by the young, to whom it
is addressed by the author, who always speaks to '^3, " my
son." In form the whole book is like Psalm cxix., which,
by its alphabetic acrostic — eight stanzas to each letter of the
alphabet — betrays the author's intention to assist the mem
ory of young learners, only that this psalm is addressed to
the IJ^J, " lad," the younger learner, and is, according to its
diction, of a more recent origin than Proverbs. In Proverbs
it is the uniform rhythm, and the rhyme of sense instead of
sound, in the parallel lines, either explanatory or supple
mentary, which assist the memory; while Psalm cxix.,
intended for younger learners, has, in addition to these
mnemonic arrangements, also the eightfold alphabetical
acrostic. The authors of Koheleth, especially in the seventh
chapter, and after him Joshua ben Sirah (second century
B. C.) essayed to imitate the Solomonic rhythm, e^ddently
to the same purpose, but did not exactly succeed. The
author of the Book of Job succeeded better.
9. According to its headings Proverbs consists of three
parts. It is headed (i. 1) "Proverbs (poems) of Solomon,

Pronaos to Holy Writ. 105
Bon of David, King of Israel ; " then chapter x., " Proverbs
of Solomon ; " then chapter xxv., " Also these are Proverbs
of Solomon, which the men of Hezekiah, King of Judah,
compiled."* To this come yet chapter xxx., headed " The
words of Agur, son of Jakeh, the Masaah ;" and chapter
xxxi., " the words of Lemuel, the king, a Massah," closing
with the golden alphabet of woman. The fact that the first
heading is explicit, adding to Solomon's name, "son of
David, King of Israel," which is omitted in the two follow
ing headings, shows that the two following parts were added
to the first, being before that a separate book. In the third
heading the words, n'jii DJ, " also these," admit of diff'er
ent interpretations ; they may be understood that only the
third part was authenticated as Solomonic by the men of
Hezekiah, or that also the second part was authenticated by
them. In the latter case, however, this heading ought to be
over the second part, and the repetitions in the third part
from the second would be inexplicable. Therefore it seems
correct that the third part was a separate manuscript, which
the men of Hezekiah ascertained to be Solomonic, and
added it to the book. Chapter xxx. may well be a Massah
addressed to Solomon by one who assumed the fictitious
name of Agur, as we shall see below ; and chapter xxxi.
may also be addressed to Solomon, in behalf of his mother,
by a Syrian seer, to which he responds with the golden
alphabet closing the book. At any rate the Talmudical
tradition, that the men of Hezekiah wrote or authenticated
the whole book of Proverbs, is not supported by any explicit

*1i5'nyn the Hiphil of pnj? was used in the New Hebrew for trans
lating, from its primary sense of " transposing," which could not
be ita meaning here, as these chapters contain literal quotations
from former chapters, aa, for instance, xxviii. 13, 14. It must be
understood in the sense as used in Proverbs viii. 18, " dignified,
permanent, lasting," and in the hiphil form to make something so.
The men of Hezekiah authenticated, dignified and made perma
nent these chapters to be also of Solomonic origin, and added them
to this book.

106 Hagiography.
statement in the book itself.* There can be no doubt
that Solomon was a writer especially oi Meshalim (1 Kings
V. 9-14). His book, or books, Sepher Dibrei Shelomoh, was
extant in the time when the Book of Kings was written
(ibid. xi. 41), to which also Joshua ben Sirah testifies in his
book (xlvii. 12-17). It is as certain a fact as it is that he
built the temple, the cities of Tadmor, Balbec and Ezion
Geber, that he wrote the first part of the Proverbs in the
earlier days of his reign, for there is laid down the Solo
monic policy and standpoint as the head of the royaUstic
theocracy, to which he adhered almost to the end of his
reign. It must be borne in mind that the theocracy as
established by Moses was democratic, and remained so for
nearly four centuries. With the ascension of King Saul it
became royalistic. In its first form the prophet was the
head ofthe State (Deuter. xviii. 15) ; the Council of Elders,
among them also priests and Levites, the high priest pre
siding, and the judges were the head ofthe law (ibid. xvii. 8-
13); the priests' functions were limited to the altar and-
public teaching (Leviticus x. 8-11 ; Deut. xxxiii. 8-11). The
transition from the democratic to the royalistic theocracy
was not easy. Jeroboam succeeded in abolishing the tra
ditional priesthood, but did not succeed in extinguishing
the authority of the prophet. Under Saul and David the
authority of the prophet remained superior even to the
king's. Solomon attempted, successfully for a time, to set
aside entirely the prophet's authority and establish his own
as the sovereign head of the theocracy. During the reign of
Solomon, to the very last years thereof, no prophet's voice
* The ingenious suggestion, that " King Alkum " (xxx. 31) refers
to the high priest Aloymos, successor of Menelaus in the Macca
bean time, and the " lion" (verse 30) refers to Judah, or his suc
cessor, Jonathan, is not impossible, as the compilers of the third
Canon, in the time of Simon, may have added this passage, as they
added Maccabean psalms to the Psalm book ; but then the " king "
must be omitted from " King of Alcymos," as the latter was no king.
But there is no necessity for this allegation, and nothing to
prove it.

Pronaos to Holy Writ. 107
is heard, and when heard again it is that of the stern oppo
sition to the wise king (1 Kings xi. 29-39). The temple is
built and pompously dedicated and no prophet is heard.
The king does all the praying, receives himself the mes
sages from On High, and conjures down from heaven the
fire upon the altar. There is no prophet anywhere. In the
writings of the prophets in aftertimes it is David and Zion
that are glorified; Solomon's name is not mentioned any
more. Solomon opposed effectually the authority of the
prophets, to establish his own as the sovereign head of the
theocracy. On what did he base his claim of superiority to
the prophets? The historical sources reply, he based his
claim on superior wisdom, which God himself is said to
have bestowed on him as it was given to no other mortal
(1 Kings iii. 5-28; v. 9-14).* The difference, however, be
tween Solomon's and the prophetical wisdom is that Sol
omon's was simply his own, the natural product of his
mind, and the prophetical was by inspiration, special mes
sages from On High. It was this prophetical prerogative
which Solomon opposed. With this knowledge derived
from history we open the Book of Proverbs to find in it
the entire exclusion of all special prophecy. Wisdom, rea
son, understanding, knowledge, prudence, intelligent device,
forethought and counsel are personified, apostrophized and
glorified in all possible variations, especially chapters, i.-x.,
of song and eloquence, f David sings the praise of God,
Solomon sings the praise of wisdom. David listens with
awe and reverence to the prophet's message. Solomon
receives none and wants none; wisdom is his highest
authority. * It is instructive to read 2 Chronicles i. 7-13, how that author
who glorifies the temple builder otherwise modifies his wisdom to
a much lower degree and omits much of what the author of Kings
wrote before him.
t The oldest commentary on the nature of Solomon's wisdom is
in the apocryphal Wisdom of Solomon, chapter viii., and there it is
plain efiough that it was intended as a poetical personification,
and no hypostasis like the Gnostic Sophia.

108 Hagiography.
The whole Book of Proverbs, without an exception, is
written in this very spirit, and must, therefore, be the gen
uine work of Solomon. There was no time after the
Solomonic age (certainly not the time of King Hezekiah)
down to the time beyond the Macedonian Alexander, when
such a spirit domineered in Israel. We must also take into
consideration that in the whole book there is no com
plaint of and no allusion to any national mishap, war,
idolatry, moral corruption or any suffering at all, except the
poverty of individuals, everything is lovely, peaceful, with
plenty of wealth and sufficiency of protection. It was evi
dently the Solomonic age, with its advanced state of culture,
peace and wealth, which produced the book.
10. The Solomonic ethics as laid down in Proverbs is in
substance the ethics of Moses, as Psalms is the lyric expo
sition of the theology of Moses. The ethical principles of
Moses are reduced to practical precepts, and in this respect
it matters not whether all passages of Proverbs are of Solo
monic origin ; all of them are in full consonance with the
plan and principle of the book, hence if not by Solomon
they are all in the spirit of the wise king. It is admitted in
the Talmud that Solomon furnished the handle or ears to the
closed urn of the Thorah (Erubin 216.)* But it is also stated
there ( Taanith 8) by the chief Massorite of Tiberias, Rabbi
Jochanan, that there is nothing in Proverbs, or even in all
Hagiography, which is not suggested in the Thorah, and he
discovers Proverbs xix. 3 suggested in Genesis xiii. 21.
Those ancient expounders of the law credit Solomon with
a number of ritual laws which he is said to have ordained,
and yet at one time proposed to remove from the Canon Pro
verbs, Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes, because " It is merely
the wisdom of Solomon" (Meguillah), who sought to be
like Moses, for which the Bath Kol rebuked him (Rosh
Hashona 2l), and did not heed the warning of the Thorah
in Deuter. xvii. 14-20, concerning the conduct of the king
nD-?2> tOK* iy D'JTK rh rxc ns'saS non mm nn'n nSnna *

Pronaos to Holy Writ. 109
(Sanhedrin 21). They entertained no very high opinion of
Solomon's moral character (D*pO HHi U^KI tS'lll HNJ)
and held the very highest opinion of his wisdom (IJltJ^n^
ilO'^JJ^ ION)- Only in a few instances Solomon is placed
higher than the prominent savant.* Thus is maintained
(Maccoth 23) that the Holy Spirit was poured out in Sol
omon's court of justice; and furthermore (Sotah 41) that
" Former Prophets " means David, Samuel and Solomon.
This difference of opinions among the ancient sages would
be inexplicable, if we would not know already that the
policy of Solomon was anti-prophetical as far, anyhow, as
the "judging" and "governing" was concerned, claiming
for himself unlimited sovereignty by virtue of his superior
wisdom, and that on the other hand, his ethics, in Proverbs,
anyhow, is no more and no less than the principles of the
Mosaic ethics reduced to practical precepts to meet the va
riety of vicissitudes and emergencies in the life of the indi
vidual and society. Some of those ancient rabbis did hold,
as did also the author of the apocryphal book, " Wisdom of
Solomon," " the wise man is superior to the prophet," which
others did not admit. This explains the difference of
opinions among the ancient rabbis on Solomon and his
ethics. 11. The Solomonic ethics is a commentary on the Mosaic
ethics, as by reason understood. This is evident from the
principle laid down in Proverbs i. 7 : " The fear of Jehovah
is the beginning of knowledge," the spontaneous knowledge
of the good, the beautiful and the true in all particular cases.
This is further explained thus (Prov. ix. 10) : " The fear of
Jehovah is the beginning (efficient cause) of wisdom and

* The defense made for this religious character, " Whoever says
Solomon sinned is in error," is contradicted in 2 Kings xxiii. 13 :
for the defense relies on the potential mood of n33' TN (1 Kings xi.
7) and understands the passage, "Then he intended to build"
those altars to the gods of hia wives, but did not actually build
them ; while in 2 Kings it is stated that Joshiah destroyed the
Bamoth which Solomon had built to those gods.

110 Hagiography.
the knowledge of holiness is understanding."* It produces
wisdom, viz : the correct moral judgment and the control
over the will by that judgment. This again is explained
(Prov. XV. 33) to this effect : " The fear of Jehovah is the
correction of wisdom," it directs reason into the proper
channel and guides the will to the proper action. It is on
this principle that the author exclaims (Prov. xxi. 30),
" There is no ¦wisdom nor understanding, nor counsel against
Jehovah," contrary to or in confiict with the God idea as
known and understood in Israel, as expressed in the word
Jehovah; whatever is contrary to this God-idea or con
fiicting with it, is not wisdom, not understanding, not
counsel. So did the author of Job also understand the
fundamental idea of Proverbs. He sings the ode of wisdom
(Job xxviii. 22) entirely in the sense of Solomon and closes
it, " And he said to man, behold the fear of Adonai (equiv
alent for Jehovah), this is ¦wisdom, and to eschew evil is
understanding." This is the touchstone of genuine wisdom,
the manifestation of correct understanding. So did also
the author of the apocryphal book of the " Wisdom of Sol
omon " understand and reproduce the Solomonic principle
of ethics, as wisdom based upon the fear of Jehovah. None
perhaps has expressed it more forcibly than the princely
prophet (Isaiah xxxiii. 6) : " The firmness of salvation, wis
dom and knowledge shall be the stability of thy time ; the
fear of Jehovah is its treasury." What everybody knows
need not be proved. Every reader of Moses knows that
" Jehovah " is the word which expresses the God idea of the
Mosaic scriptures, defined in various passages of the
same Pentateuch ; and every one cain see for himself that
the whole book of Proverbs is exclusively Jehavistic. So
everybody who has read Moses must admit that the ethical
principle with him is based upon the cogitation and cog
nition of Jehovah and his nature of grace and holiness, so
* Kedoshim in this case, like the plurals in many other cases,
Adonim, Chnchmoth, etc., signifies the abstract idea of the terms,
holiness, lordship, etc.

Pronaos to Holy Writ. Ill
that man's knowledge of ethical doctrine is identical with
his knowledge of God's moral attributes, and all moral
obligation has its root in the Mosaic God-idea. This may
be considered unphilosophical, but it is undoubtedly the
Mosaic standpoint, and perfectly identical with the Sol
omonic standpoint, with whom also Yirath Jehovah, the fear,
veneration, worship, cogitation and cognition of God as by
Moses defined and taught, is the foundation and principle
of all ethics and man's moral obligation. The opposition
ofthe prophets and the objections of the ancient rabbis to
the wise king's teachings finds its explanation in his oppo
sition to the prophets and their supremacy in his time, all
of which, he thought, could be replaced by the superior
wisdom which God had granted him, as far as the govern
ment of the nation and the dispensation of justice were
concerned ; and as far as the self-government of the indi
vidual is concerned, he thought, the same principle was
applicable, wisdom based upon and rooted in the fear of
Jehovah with the revealed material before them was also
all-sufficient, without any further special oracles of any
prophets. This peculiar rationalism which always there
after had its prominent admirers in Israel, especially among
the kings and princes, brought on him the ire of prophets
and rabbis. The men of Hezekiah in collecting and com
piling the last portion of Proverbs, which they certainly
believed to. be of Solomonic origin, defend the wise king
with the argument that he certainly took his ethical prin
ciple from the Thorah of Moses.
12. Proverbs xxviii., the author speaks distinctly of the
Thorah as the code of ethics, the canon of justice, and the
source of religious instruction without any prophetical aid.
He speaks of the Rasha, who flees where none pursues, in
imitation of Deut. xxxii. 30, and the Tzaddik, fearless and
confident like the lion. He speaks then (verse 4) of the
friends of the wicked, viz : iinil *3tJ^ " Those who forsake
the Thorah, praise the -wicked," and nilJl HOItJ' "those
who guard and observe the Thorah content with them," the
former are the J^l ''{J'JN "the men of evil that understand

112 Hagiography.
no justice," because they reject the Thorah, and the latter as
I"! ^tJ'D^O " those who seek Jehovah (in his Thorah) under
stand it all." He then speaks (verse 7) of Hlin IVU, " the
guardian of the Thorah is a wise son," and, referring to
Deut. xxi. 18-20, he concludes, " the companion of the
riotous shameth his father," or the father brings such a son
to shame, according to the above law, saying that the oppo
site of the guardian of the Thorah who spends his time in
reading and searching the Thorah, is the companion of the.
riotous, that runs himself and his father into shame. Then
(verse 9) he speaks of a third class, J^OSr^O ^ytH 1*DQ
rfyiD, "one who turneth away his ear from hearing the
Thorah," who does not only not observe the Thorah and not
meditate therein, but would not hear of it if others speak
to him of it, " also his prayer is an abomination ;" because it
is not the expression of any honest religious sentiment. In
this case Thorah can not signify any canon except the well-
known Thorah of Jehovah, for the observer of which is the
parallel in verse 5. ^^ ^JJ'OSD, h^^e Psalms cv. 3 and Isaiah
li. 1, " those that seek Jehovah." Nor could it refer to a
traditional Thorah, to which the term liflj is not applicable
and the J^DSJ' in verse 9 would be a mere tautology. The
author evidently refers to the written and well-known canon
called the Thorah of Jehovah or the Thorah of Elohim.
This reference to the Thorah of Moses is also supported by
the plain statements in Proverbs xiii. and xxii. 17 e. s,; by
the statements of 1 Kings ii. 3 and viii. 36,37; also 1
Chronicles xxii. 12, 13 ; and especially by the doctrine con
tained uniformly in the whole book.
13. Two objections are urged against this theory. One
is the manner in which the author speaks of sacrifices,
Proverbs xxi. 3 and 22, and the golden alphabet of woman,
with which the book closes. In the dedication prayer Solo
mon does not even mention the sacrificial cult (1 Kings
viii. 22-61) ; and in the above passages the author merely
repeats the words of the prophet Samuel (1 Samuel xv, 22,
23), as did several prophets and poets of Psalms without
dereliction to the sacrificial cult. In chapter xxxi. the

Pronaos to Holy Writ. 113
author sings the praise not of queens, princesses, concubines
or other ladies of the court ; he sings the praise ot the plain
citizen's noble spouse. It is a reply to his mother's chas
tisement, -with which the chapter opens. Lemuel, the King's
Massa, is addressed to Solomon, and the golden alphabet of
woman is his excuse for his polygamy and the debauchery
connected with it. He had not found among his thousand
wives and concubines one like this, because he was a king
and not a plain citizen. Besides this he closes his book
with Yirath Jehovah as he begins it (i. 7), true religion as
the fundamental principle of human dignity and greatness,
with woman as well as with man, exactly as Moses did.
The very first word of the book "Mishlei," occurs nowhere
before Solomon in this sense except in the Pentateuch
(Numbers xxiii. 18).
There exists no good cause to deprive King Solomon ofthe
authorship of Proverbs i.-xxv., or to doubt the veracity of
the men of Hezekiah, who compiled the annex to the book.
Consequently it is safe to place the former after 1000 years
B. C. and the completion ofthe book 700 years B. C.
14. The Book of Job (Ee-yob), the third volume of
Hagiography, consists of forty-two chapters, one thousand
and seventy verses, the middle of which is chapter xxii.,
verse 16. Except chapters i., ii. and xiii., which are prosaic,
the book is written in the same meter or rhythm as Pro
verbs and Psalms, but differs from both in diction, espe
cially by its numerous quotations and imitations of older
scriptures and many new terms.* As a poetical production
it is the master work not only of the Bible, but also of the
ancient world's literature.
It is an epos, the hero of which is the man of perfect
righteousness, and is composed of philosophical dialogues.
Job, pain-stricken, bereaved of all his wealth, health and
happiness, with his wife and his dearest friends against
him, in a state of unspeakable misery, discusses with them
*Like E-'stj-i ,ntsn ooi ,33T -^HB' .pp -Bop 'jns 'B'''y -c'tsy /p-iy '"bo
and many others.

114 Hagiography.
the theme of righteousness as the will of God and the duty
of man. His friends maintain Job must be a grievous sin
ner, therefore God punished him so severely, and admonish
him to repent his misdeeds and to appeal to God's mercy.
One of them attempts to console Job with the faith of the
pious that are punished here for their sins and receive the
full reward for their righteousness in life eternal. Again,
another admonishes Job to submit without a murmur to
the inscrutable will and wisdom of God, as man, who is a
mere atom in God's creation, could not go into judgment
with the Lord of the universe. He could but appeal to his
mercy and grace. The fourth endeavors to review and
refute the justification of Job and the harshness of his
words uttered in a state of utmost pain of mind and body,
basing upon the moral principle, that it is sinful to speak
as Job did of God and his justice, that the woe-stricken
must not thus cry out his pain and grief before the Father
of man. Job's wife, worst of all, sarcastically upbraids him
with his stern righteousness, which, she said, had brought
him down to the lowest state of misery, and advised him to
abandon all hope and faith, " Blaspheme God and die."
Job, however, did not sin with his lips. He sternly rebukes
his ¦wife and argues against his friends — not always, indeed,
in the most proper language, as one less woe-stricken might
have done. He pleads his perfect innocence; he knows
himself free of sin and guilt ; he has done as much good as
any man in his position could ; it is not punishment which
is inflicted on him. He questions even the justice of God,
in bringing such misery on frail man as punishment for
sins committed, as the Maker knows how weak and perish
able the creature is, and man's misdeeds can not affect God
in anywise. He argues against the ideas of future reward
as a consolation in his present misery, as that reward was
uncertain in man's mind; hence it could not counterbal
ance his present misery, which is a certainty and contin
uous woe to him. He could not accept the inscrutability
of God's will and wisdom as a consolation in his abject
misery; ignorance is no consolation; his pains are no less

Pronaos to Holy Writ. 115
grievous because he knows not why. He steadily main
tains his consciousness of justice and righteousness, hence
he knows that justice and righteousness are God's will and
man's duty; pain or joy, grief or happiness, however or
whatever may come upon man and with what degree of
intensity they come, man must not desert his own nature,
and his nature is also God's nature ; he can not and must
not desert or abandon justice and righteousness. I know
not why I am woe-stricken, Job argues, but I know that
justice and righteousness are the rock of humanity, hence
also the essentiality of my Maker. God closes the argu
ment ( chapters xxxvii. to xl.), and admonishes Job's friends
(xiii. 7) " That ye have not spoken of me as properly as my
servant Job." Job is also instructed by the Almighty that
no mortal comprehends fully the plans and workings of
Providence ; and he confesses (chapter xl. 1-4 and xiii.
1-6) that he had blindly argued — which the author of the
book makes known to the reader in the very beginning by
the allegory in heaven — he confesses: "I have heard of
thee by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye hath seen
thee, wherefore I abhor myself and I repent in dust and
ashes. ' It is the epos of the perfectly righteous man, who
in pain and grief changeth not his allegiance to righteous
ness, and even then reserves his moral fortitude to confess,
that he, in his outcry of woe and his groans of pain, had
not spoken as it behooves the righteous man. This is
acknowledged by one of the oldest authorities mentioned in
the Talmud, and mentioned only on account of this, his
defense of Job (Sotah 22): "Rabbi Joshua ben Hyrcan
said Job worshiped God out of love," which, according to
those ancient Rabbis, is the highest degree of piety and
moral perfection.
15. The position of the Book of Job in the Canon is that
of apologetics. Therefore it was placed after Psalms and
Proverbs, although it is older than some Psalms and
claims a closer resemblance to prophetical writings than
Proverbs. In the course of logical thought there had to
follow after the elucidation of theology in Psalms and the

116 Hagiography.
exposition of ethics based on that theology in Proverbs —
where the Yirath Jehovah is treated as a well known and
well understood conception — the apologetics of both in the
Book of Job. The hero of the epos in the poet's mind may
have been the man Job, the righteous patriarch living in a
foreign country near the borders of the wilderness, whose
consistent piety, in wealth and poverty, health and abject
disease, under all vicissitudes of an eventful and mutable
life, had become the admired pattern of a righteous man,
as he is represented by the prophet Ezekiel, together with
Noah and Daniel (Ezekiel xiv. 24). Or the term Ee-yob,
Which signifies "one subjected to animosities or persecu
tions," may be a personification representing the people of
Israel exposed unjustly to the animosities and persecutions
of petulant nations, represented in the allegory by Satan.
The various opinions of Job's friends, against which he
contends, may have been prevalent among different parties
of that time in defense of Providence and the justice of
reward and punishment ; and, in fact, they are traceable
in the history of philosophy both in Greece and the Orient.
Or those opinions may have been prevalent among the
Hebrews as the moral cause of Israel's suff'erings among
the nations, the dispersion, captivity and restoration ; and
these various speculations are traceable in Prophets, espe
cially in Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Deutro-Isaiah, and in some
of the later psalms, as Job's principle is specially illus
trated in Isaiah liii. and Psalms 73, 94. Whatever may
have been the plastic subject in that philosophical poet's
mind — it is difficult now to ascertain it — the character of
the book as a philosopheme is not affected by it ; it is the
apologetics of the two main doctrines of Moses, viz. :
revelation and righteousness.
(a) Revelation, God himself speaking to man, is origin
ally Mosaic. Vayedabber Yehovah el, " God spoke to Moses,
to Moses and Aaron, to the people of Israel," and not
merely God appeared or said to this or that person in a
dream or vision, by an angel or another vehicle of com
munication, is the formula of the revelation, peculiar to

Pronaos to Holy Writ. 117
Moses only, and is found nowhere else in Scriptures, except
once in Joshua xx , which is a quotation from Moses. The
necessity of revelation is undoubtedly one of the main
points which the author of Job seeks to demonstrate. He
begins with a plot in heaven unknown to Job and his
friends. He produces their arguments on the cause of Job's
suff'erings, none of which is the right one, for they are
ignorant of the heavenly plot, and are unable to unravel
the mystery or to satisfy Job, till at last Jehovah himself
appears and enlightens Job on the momentous problem of
Providence and righteousness. The author evidently wishes
to tell us that without revelation we would not know this
doctrine, and knowing it, we would not be able to under
stand it, as was the case with Job and his friends.*
(6) Righteousness is an attribute of God (Deut. xxxii. 4),
the fundamental duty and means of salvation to man
(Exodus xix. 5, 6), is the substance of revelation, which
was unknown to all Pagan religions of antiquity. It is the
doctrine of Abraham and Moses only (Genesis xviii. 17-33)
and the heritage of the congregation of Jacob It is the
foundation upon which the whole Mosaic dispensation
rests, viz. : "God is just, he giveth to every man according
to his ways and according to the fruits of his deeds."
God's mercy, grace, holiness are included in his attribute of
justice, and condition the execution thereof on man on
account of his numerous imperfections and his free will.
This makes righteousness absolutely the duty of man. To
doubt the justice of God is identical with doubting the
truth of the Abrahamitic and Mosaic revelation. This
skepticism, it appears from Malachi, from Psalms Ixxiii.
¦* This seems to be the reason that the Talmud maintains Moses
wrote the story of Balaam and the Book of Job, both being defenses
of revelation, and plenary revelation, giving doctrine and law to
man, according to those teachers is ascribed to Moses only.
Balaam, the greatest of Gentile prophets, then and there is incon
sistent, superstitious, treacherous and immoral (Numbers xxv. 1 ;
xxxi. 8-16, and Sanhedrin 86) ; he with his wisdom lacks the revela
tion and proves its necessity.

118 Hagiography.
and xciv., and the closing chapter of Nehemiah, had taken
hold on people's minds when the author of Job wrote his
apologetics, proving his position in the last chapters with
God's own speech, pointing out to Job the power, wisdom,
goodness and justice prevailing in the vast domain of nature
everywhere ; too vast for man to comprehend it all, still clear
and evident enough to force upon Job the conclusion that
there is an eternal and universal justice and goodness con
ceivable in the whole of God's creation, although inscruta
ble and inexplicable in its details, in individual cases.
16 When was this grand book written and who was its
author? It is humiliating to confess that so grand and sub
lime a poet passed away and no trace of his name is left in his
book, none in the nation's traditions, so that the oldest au
thorities had no knowledge of it. The time of this book's
origin can be established by the following facts :
(a) Job was not written in the prophetical period ; it is
diff'erent in substance, method and style from all books of
that period. It is not psalmodic like David ; not gnomic
like Solomon ; not predictive like the prophets ; it is purely
didactic and universal, and in the dialogue form like Plato
and portions of the Zendavesta. Besides this, it philoso
phizes and contends with skepticism ; and a prophetical
age doubts not. hence reasons not discursively. It is not
the free, untrammeled and artless speech of an inspired and
vehemently-moved mind ; the entire book is carefully and
artistically finished ; it is a work of art as a whole and in
all its details, and contains besides many imitations and
quotat' Dns from older scriptures. Its horizon embraces the
cosmos, which, besides the first chapter of Genesis and
Psalm civ., has no precedent in Scriptures ; and its specu
lations on human nature and events are universally human,
as none did write or speculate before him in Palestine.
Again, in all the dialogues of Job and his friends the tetra
grammaton does not occur (except once, xii. 9, in 'a, quota
tion) ; the Shaddi and El, or Elovah, mostly take the place
of the ineff'able name. The book could not possiblv have
been written at any time during the prophetical period.

Pronaos to Holy Writ. 119
(6) On the other hand, the book presents other pecu
liarities. It is not prophetical, nor yet is it apocalyptic. It
knows of the Benai Elohim; also of Zechariah's Satan, but
they are not even called Malachim, "Angels," and may be
taken as poetical fictions. No angels, no visions of unde
fined allegories, no oracles from on high appear in the dia
logues. Only in the introductory and closing chapters,
when God speaks, the terms Elohim and Jehovah occur.
None of the later writers whose products are preserved in
Scriptures would let God speak to man directly ; neither
Daniel, Ezra nor Nehemiah rose to that height in his spirit
ual exaltation, none would thus freely use the tetragram
maton or its next equivalent, Elohim. It is, therefore, evi
dent that Job was written nearer to the prophetical age
than those other books, and, according to what we know of
the prevailing skepticism in the time of Malachi, the poet
of Job must have flourished and written during the last
days of Nehemiah or very shortly after, when the prophet
ical strains still reverberated in the people's souls, the
catholicity of the Deutro-Isaiah had taken root in the pop
ular mind, and an enlarged conception of nature and cos
mos pervaded the land from the Chaldeans on the one side
and the Egyptians on the other. Therefore we may take
for granted that the Book of Job was written between 420
and 400 B. C , as the Talmud has it.
17. The fourth book of Hagiography is composed of the
five Meguilloth " scrolls," and in this order : Song of Solo
mon {Shir Hashshirim) ; Ruth, Lamentations (Aichah);
Ecclesiastes (Koheleth), and Esther. This succession ofthe
" scrolls " in the volume is of recent date, as noticed before,
and follows the order as they were read in the synagogues,
viz. : Shir Hashshirim was read on Passover, when the year
of the Mosaic festivals begins ; Ruth was read on Pentecost ;
Aichah the ninth day of the month of Ab, the anniversary
day of the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple ; Koheleth
during the Feast of Booths, and Esther on Purim day.
According to their supposed authors, as fixed in the tradi
tions, their order should be Ruth, Shir Hashshirim, Kobe-

120 Hagiography.
leth, Aichah, Esther, and in this order we must consider
them. 18. Ruth consists of four chapters, eighty-five verses, the
middle of which is ii. 21. It is an idylic narrative in artless
prose, glorifying the ancestress ofthe royal house of David,
whose name was Ruth or Ruoth, " the friendly." She was
the mother of Obed, and he was the father of Jesse, who
was the father of David (Ruth iv. 17). According to this
statement, the story of Boaz and Ruth transpired three
generations or a century before the time of David, and so
the book begins : " And it came to pass in the days of the
Judges." According to the Talmud, Boaz, the hero of the
idyl, was identical with Ibzan (Judges xii. 8), of Beth
Lehem, who was Judge in Israel after Jephthah. Accord
ing to 1 Chronicles ii. 9-12, Boaz was a lineal descendant
of Nahshon ben Aminadab, the prince ofthe tribe of Judah
in the time of Moses. The character of Ruth, with her
filial devotion to her mother-in-law, is almost identical with
that of Jephthah's daughter, so that both seem to reflect the
spirit of the age. Still it does not give any assurance that
it was written prior to the days of David, whose genealogy
seems to be the main object of the little volume. The
Talmud maintains that Samuel, the author of Judges, was
also the author of Ruth. The beginning of the book shows
that it was written after the close of the period of the
Judges, hence after Saniuel's abdication. We might sup
pose that the story was known with its details in the family
of Jesse only, as it was of no particular interest to others ;
and Samuel when he anointed David, coming in close
contact with the family, and being much interested in it,
learned its family traditions and wrote this lovely story to
gain the popular favor for his favorite, David. The diction
of the book hardly diff'ers from that of Judges. But then
Samuel must have been quite old, and it does not seem
likely that so old, earnest, serious and disappointed a
statesman and prophet could have written so light, lovely,
simple, sublime an idyl, in which life, love, nature in their
most charming simplicity are portrayed so plastically.

Pronaos to Holy Writ. 121
Besides, the spirit of the Ruth scroll does not seem to be
the same with that of the uncompromising theocratic-
democratic and warlike patriot. In Ruth, the daughter of
Moab, the enemy of Israel, the worshiper of Chamosh is
glorified, graced with the sweetest womanly virtues and
charms, and is held up as a plastic pattern of excellent
piety and purity to the daughters of Israel. This, like the
Book of Jonah, Deutro-Isaiah and Job, betrays a tolerance,
catholicity and universal religion, which hardly looks like
the time of Samuel. It rather looks as if David in his
younger days had written it and Samuel had made it
known in favor of the young bard and hero. The language
of the whole volume is that of a young, poetical and viva
cious writer. There is no expression in the whole narrative
which points to an age beyond the Davidian, while that
artless simplicity of speech, manners, occupation, food,
house, the touching and unconscious innocence of the
heroine, the simple urbanity of Boaz, although evidently a
prominent aristocrat among his townsmen, point to a high
antiquity, evidently to a pre-Davidian age. This is also
supported by the frequent use of the tetragrammaton and
Shaddi in the conversational passages, which no writer
after the prophetical millenium would do. It is the frequent
reference to the Thorah of Moses which misled critics, and
also us in former days, to place the authorship of Ruth
after the time of Ezra. But after we do know that in the
time of Samuel and David the Thorah was well known,
there is no reason whatever why the authorship of the Book
of Ruth should not be given to Samuel and David during
the last half of the eleventh century B. C.
19. The Song of Solomon or Song of Songs — Shir Hash
irim — consists of eight chapters divided into one hundred
and seventeen verses, the middle of which is iv. 14. In
diction and rhythm it is purely Solomonic and Hebraic, as
it is in its sceneries and tropes purely Palestinian. There
is no allusion in it to a divided country ; Jerusalem and
Thirzah, Lebanon, Karmel, En Gedi and Baal Hamon are
equally delightful, the tower of David and the tower of

122 Hagiography.
Lebanon are of equal distinction, Gilead in the north and
the seam of the wilderness in the south are present in the
poet's mind. As a profane lyric poem or a collection of
poems, an outpouring of the most impetuous passions, a
glo^wing word picture of indomitable love " mighty like
death " on the background of all that is beautiful, fragrant,
refreshing in motion, shapes and colors, beguiling and
intoxicating in human beauty and Palestinian climate and
scenery. Shir Hashirim ranks highest in the world's litera
ture. And yet with all its enticing and sense-enchanting
tropes and almost lascivious descriptions it denies nowhere
the chastity and purity of the Hebrew woman, the devotion
and self-control of the Hebrew lover, which always outshine
and overwhelm the wild fire of passion and the inebriety of
sensuality. Nor do all the opulent beauties of nature com
pressed by the poet in so small a frame form the prominent
and plastic presentation of the poem ; they are mere back
ground and frame-work, mere ornamentation of the main
picture, which is human excellency, love, honor, purity,
faithfulness, vehement resistance to seductive sensuality,
strength of character and the triumph of a noble woman
hood over the very tempting enticements of the world's
most envied treasures of happiness. No Greek, no Arab,
none but a Hebrew poet could produce such a poetical
creation. 20. The story which, with some exceptions, is the subject
of the whole Shir Hashirim is quite simple. Sulamith (the
feminine Solomon), an artless shepherdess, comely though
sunburnt, is the object of King Solomon's ardent love.
She is brought to Jerusalem, and under the influence of all
the dazzling brilliancy of the royal court, the seductive
promises of the most extravagant luxury and pomp, the
persuasive language of the royal lover, the choruses of the
court and the daughters of Jerusalem. Sulamith's best
affections, however, belong to the shepherd in her rural
home; she clings to him, sings his praise, fancies and
dreams of him only, addresses to the absent lover the
words of love's liquid fire, remains steadfast and firm in

Pronaos to Holy Writ. 123
her affections and forces the poet to the conviction, " Love
is strong as death — jealousy is cruel as the grave — the coals
thereof are coals of fire, a most vehement flame. Many
waters can not quench love, neither can the floods drown
it ; if a man would give all the substance of his house for
love, it would utterly be contemned " (viii. 6, 7). The
whole of Song of Songs is a glorification of the daughter of
Israel, the triumph of the ideal over the sensual, the moral
idea over the voluptuous and sensuous allurements, out
side the centers of wealth, luxury and sensuality. Yet the
main subject is several times dropped in the book and other
songs are inserted (iii. 7-11) ; iii. 1-5 and the similar v. 2-8
are dreams of Sulamith, as she says (v. 2), which she tells
the daughters of Jerusalem ; viii. 8-10 and 11-14 are frag
ments of poems.
21. In this natural signification Shir Hashirim may be
well taken as the product of King Solomon or at least of
the Solomonic age, which, as the Talmud maintains, the
Men of King Hezekiah compiled, and the non-Solomonic
poems may have been taken into the Solomonic because
they had been addressed to him, so that JlO'^tJ''? ItJ'K in the
heading may be intended to express both " by " and " to "
Solomon, as in the case in Psalms ¦with the " Le David "
and " Li Shelomoh." The fact that Solomon is the rejected
lover in the poem does not contradict his authorship. It is
the identical case as with the golden alphabet of women in
Proverbs. The polygamist Solomon must have well under
stood that he could never possess a woman's genuine love
like the poet's ideal, and so he felt himself rejected by Sula
mith. He objectified himself in the poem, as many other
poets did, and this is the most touching lyric echo. It is
maintained that there are Aramaic or Syriac words in the
poem, therefore the conclusion that it must have been writ
ten in the Kingdom of Israel, where the Syriac at an early
date was interpolated in the Hebrew — for which not the
shadow of proof exists ; or it was produced in or after the
Babylonian captivity, which is impossible. The exile, the
mourner, the genius with mortified sentiments among a

124 Hagiography.
mortified and hapless people, could not sing so cheerfully
and joyfully ; nature does not appear to him so illuminated,
love not so sublime ; the music of the hapless is plaintive,
his song melancholy, and none can rise very high above the
sentiments dominant in his community. In the time of
Solomon, who reigned over the largest portion of Syria, it
could not appear strange to anybody if Syriac terms had
been adopted by Hebrew writers or vice versa. Besides this,
however, there exists no proof that the terms pointed out as
Syriac were not Hebrew long before, or that prior to the
adoption of the Aryan terms in the Syriac there was much
diff'erence in the roots of the two languages. This is also
applicable to the song of Deborah.* No word can be called
Syriac, because it was no longer used in the Hebrew and
preserved in the Syriac. Again, that there are fragments
of other poems inserted in the Sulamith poem was not ad
vanced originally by Abraham Ibn Ezra and repeated by
ever so many exegetics down to Moses Mendelssohn, Aaron
Wolfsohn and Joel Levy ; the theory appears already in the
Midrash ( Rabbah to Canticles, I. section), where Rabbi Aibo
maintains that it announces itself as containing at least
three diff'erent parts, and this was in the third Christian
century. From this standpoint Shir Hashirim becomes in
telligible, and especially one of its most striking peculiari
ties is explicable. God's name is never mentioned in this
book, no reference even to God — except in Shalhebethjah, and
here the term, jah is an adjective expressing strength, power
in the superlative degree — no Providence or any religious
sentiment is met in it. This is ¦without parallel in the Bible,
except the Book of Esther. The only supposition to ex
plain this seems to be, that neither of these books was writ
ten for any divine purpose, and those ancient men obeyed

*e> sheh instead of ntJ'K asher is used in both poems, and this could
but prove that the poets used this abbreviation long before it was
adopted in prose composition. The proof is in the heading of Shir
Hashirim, which certainly must be younger than the poem, and
there asher and not sheh is used as the relative pronoun.

Pronaos to Holy Writ. 125
very strictly the third commandment ; they would not write
or pronounce any name of God in profane song or narrative.
' It seems evident from a passage in the Talmud (Sanhedrin
101a) which found its way into the " Zohar " in Therumah,
that Shir Hashirim was in common use as banquet songs
and at such other symposia, against which, of course, Tal
mud and Zohar protest,* although in the Mishnah ( Yadaim
iii. 5 and iv. 6) it is not decided that, as Rabbi Jose main
tains, the great poem is endowed with the same grade of
holiness as other holy books.
22. When the question rose, if Shir Hashirim is a profane
poem or collection of Solomonic poems, why did the Men
of Hezekiah compile the Uttle volume, and if they did this
in honor or out of particular respect for the king's illus
trious sire, why did the great Sanhedrin that estabUshed
the third canon accept it among those holy books? — then
it was advanced, and especially by Rabbi Akiba ben Joseph
and his supporters, that Shir Hashirim was an anagoge.
Its characters are symbolic. Sulamith is the congregation
of Israel ; Solomon, except in one passage, represents the
name of God ; its tropes are esoteric, its entire structure is
mystic, it discusses the love of God to the congregation of
Israel, that mystic love which the prophets also symbolize
by the love of bridegroom and bride. The main question
might have been answered thus : this grand monument of
a sublime genius deserved careful preservation, and is no
less glorious to the ancestors of the nation than the records
of heroes on the fields of battle, or the wisdom of savants
in the nation's council. Nor is its subject less divine than
the friendship of David and Jonathan so carefully described
in 1 Samuel, or the undying love of Jacob for his son
Joseph; love in any form is a bright reflex of divinity.
Sulamith's faithful and indestructible love is as divine and
as worthy of record as a nation's love of country proven
genuine in trying and distressing struggles. We might
suppose, however, that those earnest, serious, chaste and
'Ji nor ri23 iniN nsjnjn 'B'.Tb' h^ pioa N-iipn pa-; un *

126 Hagiography.
God-fearing men could not well appreciate such arguments.
Those savants, however, do not give any reason why just
this one production of Solomon should be an anagoge,
when all his other writings, as also those of David and
Samuel, their contemporaries and immediate successors, are
plainly exoteric. It could not be on account ofthe subject,
as the love of God and Israel is fully expressed in the
covenant, upon which the whole structure of Israelism was
based, and Solomon built the temple and had deposited in
its sanctum sanctorum the " Ark of the Convenant of Jeho
vah" (1 Kings viii. 1-11). There was no cause whatever
for putting the main and well known conception under a
cloud of mysticism, nor does it seem proper to represent
the divine love in so sensual a form. Besides all this,
Sulamith does not reciprocate the love of Solomon; she
rejects him and remains true and faithful to her absen^
shepherd lover ; hence the esoteric idea of the poem would
be, that God loves the congregation of Israel, but she loveth
best the charms and bliss of nature's gifts, or clings tena
ciously to other ideals of happiness. This, indeed, may
have been the esoteric idea of the poet, in the opinion of
the Akiba school, and thus again Solomon objectifies him
self. Anyhow, there is no alternative left; either Shir
Hashirim is plainly exoteric, the poems were written by
Solomon, with some addressed to him, in the tenth century
B. C, or it is esoteric and was written under circumstances
of national prosperity and happiness similar to the Solo
monic age, which never was the case except in the early days
of the reign of the Egyptian Ptolemies over Palestine.
Then the idea of the Platonic love had reached Palestinian
poets, together with the Grecian forms of poetry and the
worship of external beauty, so exuberantly displayed in
Shir Hashirim. Then the struggle of Judaism against
alluring Grecism was still young and mild, and seemed so
much more dangerous to the former. The highest ideals of
the Grecians were beauty, philosophy, poetry and the king,
while Judaism clung to Sinai, righteousness, God and his
law. The poet, while glorifying the daughter of Israel, well

Pronaos to Holy Writ. 127
represents this struggle between two civilizations. Sula
mith, the daughter of Sinai, that "cometh up from the
wilderness leaning on her beloved " (viii. 5) well represents
the congregation of Israel, faithful, true to her beloved.
The beloved is the God of Israel, who in the whole poem is
spoken of by Sulamith, but never appears personally on
the stage of the poem ; he is the invisible God, whom no
idols can represent. The highest ideals of the Grecian
mind, philosophy and the king, could best be represented
by the philosophical King Solomon, and he is the absent
shepherd's mighty rival. But he is rejected, the wisest of
kings is vanquished by the unshaken faith of the plain
shepherdess; the Grecian ideals can not captivate the
congregation of Israel ; she remains faithful to her beloved,
to Sinai, to the God of Israel. Here is the anagoge without
mysticism. It is an allegory.*
We can not decide which is the case, but we know that
only these two are probable : either Shir Hashirim is an
exoteric, poetical effusion of King Solomon and some of
his contemporaries, and was compiled by the Men of Heze
kiah, as the tradition has it, or it is an allegory and was
written in the time of Ptolemy Euergetes, 221-204 B. C. It
was accepted in the third canon, because it represents so
well the cause of Judaism in its struggle with Grecism.
Because it was written so late it contains np name of God
whatever, and, therefore, it was used as a popular song at
banquets and other symposia.
23. Ecclesiastes (Koheleth) consists of twelve chapters,
two hundred and twenty-two verses, the middle of which is
¦vi. 10. It is a dissertation on the Highest Good (summum
bonum) in plain prose, without any attempt at ornamenta
tion or poetical symbolism, an imformal philosopheme,
hence without technical terms, a^d, with the exception of
very few foreign words, purely Hebrew. Tradition gives its
authorship to King Solomon ; affirming that it, Uke the other
¦* See on thia point our " History of the Hebrews' Second Com
monwealth," p. 80.

128 Hagiography.
works of Solomon, was compiled in its present form by the
Men of King Hezekiah in the seventh century B. C. Moses
Mendelssohn divides the dissertation into the following thir
teen interconnected essays: (1) Chapter i. 1 to i. 11, intro
duction; (2) from i. 12 to ii. 11 ; (3) from U. 12 to u. 26;
(4) from ii. 27 to iv. 3 ; (5) from iv. 4 to iv. 17 ; (6) from iv.
18 to V. 19 ; (7) from vi. 1 to vii. 14 ; (8) from vii. 15 to viii.
9; (9) from viii. 10 to ix. 12; (10) from ix. 13 to x. 15; (11)
from X. 16 to xi. 6; (12) from xi. 7 to xii. 7; (13) from xii.
8 to the end of the book. This division is logical as far as
the different parts are concerned; each presents a unity,
according to Mendelssohn's interpretation ; but the connec
tion of the various parts into one logical unit is not estab
lished. This was felt by the Rabbis of the Talmud, who
maintain in the name of Aba Areka ( iS'/io66as 806) that it
was proposed to take Koheleth out of the Canon, " because
his words contradict one another ; " to which is added in
Vayikrah Rabbah (chapter 28) by Rabbi Levi, a cotempo
rary of the former : " because some of his words incline to
heresy (as if) the bands were loosened; there is no justice
and no judge." It was not done, as stated in the Talmud,
"because the beginning and the end thereof are words ofthe
Thorah." Evidently those ancient savants did not succeed
in discovering a logical unity in Koheleth, " The beginning
and the end thereof," on the merits of which this book was
retained in the Canon, can not refer to the introductory and
closing verses of the book, for these do not appear
Solomonic. The whole book, from i. 12 to xii. 7, is written
in the first person, Koheleth speaking to the reader ; while
the first twelve and the last seven verses are in the third
person, the editor or compiler speaking to the reader. The
closing verses, in which Koheleth, the proper noun, becomes
hak-Koheleth, the common noun, and in which the compilers
do expressly mention themselves (verse 11) as JllfilDJ^ '''7^^,
and warn the young (?JS) against making many books
(verse 12), could only be the postscript of the Men of
Hezekiah, or ofthe compilers ofthe third canon. The same
seems to be the case with the eleven introductory verses,

Pronaos to Holy Writ. 129
which consist only of general statements to the one poiat,
that man's deeds are without any effect on nature or man
kind ; nothing can be changed in the world's process or
man's destiny. " There is nothing new under the sun."
This, however, is but one point of the many, and not even
the main point discussed in Koheleth — the main point is
the summum bonum. It appears, therefore, that the first
editor or compiler of the Koheleth manuscripts knew but
those portions thereof which discuss that fatalistic doctrine ;
and a second editor or compiler added thereto such other
Koheleth manuscripts, which complete the work as a
philosopheme on the summum bonum, and wrote the con
clusion ofthe book. Abraham Ibn Ezra, in his commentary
to Koheleth (twelfth Christian century), and after him the
philosophical exegetists, Levi ben Gershom, Isaac Abarbanel,
Obadiah Seporno, Joseph Ibn Jochiah and others, expounded
Koheleth and attempted to harmonize the apparent contra
dictions of statements and doctrines in the book, without
observing, however, that the introduction does not corre
spond with the whole book, and the conclusion can not be
by the author ofthe book.
24. The cause of the apparent contradictions in Koheleth
is that the author either quotes from other documents or re
duces to writing such current sentiments which he discusses
and contravenes from his standpoint in regard to the sum
mum bonum, and either the compiler or the transcriber failed
to mark those passages, so they stand now in the text in
contradiction to the other passages thereof. The exegetists
failed to distinguish the assumed themes from the argu
ments and conclusions of the author, therefore they failed
to harmonize the statements and doctrines of Koheleth. Its
author is a firm monotheist, the ha-Elohim is his designa
tion of the Deity. He believes in Providence, which has
preordained all things from the beginning, and believes no
less in the freedom of man, who may try and do all things
which, in his opinion, may lead him to attain the summum
bonum. He believes in the justice of God, who brings to
judgment every deed of man, and laments over the injustice

130 Hagiography.
prevailing in human government in consequence of man's
free will. So he believes in creation and the Creator's wis
dom, who has made everything beautiful in its time and
place and made man upright, perfectly prepared to attain
the highest good, and believes no less that many fail in ap
preciating God's wisdom and their own aim and destiny on
account of their ignorance or their submission to the lower
passions. The author clings steadfastly to the principle
that there is universal necessity in nature and history and
individual freedom in both. He believes in personal im
mortality, "And the spirit returns to God who hath given
it." The golden mean in everything is his moral princij)le,
and in this he finds the means to attain the summum bonum.
He is no fatalist, no pessimist and no pantheist. From the
purely religious standpoint of Moses and the Prophets he
argues the question against all prevailing beliefs in his time,
showing not only their inability to secure the summum
bonum, but as their last sequences the disirability of suicide,
life not being worth living ; " all is vanity and windy
thought." Yet we feel and know that human nature is im
bued ¦with the desire to live and the longing after happiness,
consequently he is forced to the conclusion that his stand
point is the truth from which man can reach the summum
bonum. Koheleth is apologetic like Job, opposite the phil
osophical views prevailing in his age, and so in order to
understand the book correctly the passages must be di-vdded
into the assumed themes and the author's arguments and
conclusions. 25. According to traditional beliefs King Solomon is the
author of Koheleth, although his name is never mentioned
in the book. The heading speaks of Koheleth as a son of
David, Bang of Jerusalem, but this is evidently taken from
i. 12, the actual beginning of the book. " I, Koheleth, was
King over Israel in Jerusalem," to which " Son of Da^vid "
is added, and for which no authority is given. The author
(i. 16 et seq.) speaks of his great wealth, luxury, power and
wisdom, which seems to point to King Solomon, yet no
name is mentioned, neither Solomon nor a son of David.

Pronaos to Holy Writ. 131
" Koheleth " is no name of a person, as is evident from the
" hak-Koheleth " (xii. 8). There is no evidence in the book
that Solomon was its author or that he was a son of David.
The question always remains unanswered : If Solomon
was its author, why is his name not given, as in Proverbs
and Song of Songs? The entire argument of Koheleth is
apologetic of the Solomonic principle laid down in Proverbs,
.that the fear of God, the theological postulate, is the safe
foundation upon which ¦wisdom or human intellect must
base its moral doctrine and regulate its conduct in order to
attain the summvm bonum; only that in Proverbs the prin
ciple is advanced especially in regard to the state and the
ruler or rulers thereof, and in Koheleth it is discussed chiefiy
with reference to the individual and his means to attain the
highest good. Therefore, the governing power of wisdom
is here considerably modified and in all problems of morality
the golden mean is recommended. But all this does not
prove that Solomon or a son of David was its author. The
King of Israel in Jerusalem may be fictitious, like the word
Koheleth. Nor is this proved by those passages in the book
which point to Solomon's disappointments toward the close
of his reign, which ' necessitated a modification of his prin
ciple in regard to wisdom ; any other savant or reasoning
prophet may just as well have referred to this fact to
strengthen the argument that the individual wisdom also,
even if based on the fear of God, is insufficient in all cases to
reach the highest good. On the other hand, the book
affords no direct proof against the authorship of Solomon.
The arguments against certain Grecian philosophemes,
especially against Epicurism, Skepticism, the self-sufficient
Rationalism of Aristotle, and the Pessimism more or less at
the bottom of all Grecian mythology and speculation, is no
proof; as all those speculations may have been and undoubt
edly were current in the Orient long before formal phi
losophy utilized them. The Syriac and Aryan terms prove
nothing against the time of Solomon, as we have noticed
before. The absence of the tetragrammaton, the covenant,
and congregation of Israel, everything that is specifically

132 Hagiography.
Hebrew, Judaic or Israelitish throughout this book again
proves nothing, as it evidently was not written for Jew or
Gentile especially — and Solomon was the king of a- large
number of non-Israelites ; it is an argument of equal force
to all monotheists, and was evidently addressed to all and
not to the Hebrews only. No prophet and no prophecy is
referred to in Koheleth — this again looks like the days of
Solomon — because it is a piece of reasoning from principle,
fact and analogy, which has nothing in common with prophet
or prophecy. It seems, therefore, correct to maintain that
the Men of Hezekiah did compile certain writings of the
Solomonic age addressed to the congregation called " Kohe
leth," as the term signifies, because they are addressed to
the individuals to unite them in sentiments to a congrega
tion of similar doctrines. The king's name was not given
on account of the uncertainty as to the author. Centuries
after, during the struggle between Grecism and Hebrewism,
at a time when the third canon was compiled, other manu
scripts, believed to be by the same author, were added to
the older volume, and the present Book of Koheleith received
its present form. Then Koheleth received the signification
of the congregation of Israel arguing against the encroach
ments of Grecism; Sinai versus Olympus, monotheism
against philosophy, stern righteousness against sensuality,
a life of joy and gladness against asceticism, optimism
against pessimism, with the golden mean everywhere. If
this is correct, the Book of Koheleth received its present
form about 200 B. C, in the time of Antiochus the Great in
Syria, and the boy king in Egypt, containing materials from
the time of Solomon, if not entirely from himself, as com
piled by the Men of Hezekiah.
26. The Book or scroll of Lamentations, called by the
rabbis Kinnoth, was originally called Aichah, according to
the first word of the same, as it is called now and is desig
nated in all Hebrew manuscripts and prints. It consists of
five chapters, three of which begin with the same word
Aichah, divided into one hundred and fifty-four verses, the
middle of which is iii. 34. These five chapters are five

Pronaos to Holy Writ. 133
poems apparently independent of one another, the first two
of which are lamentations, and the last three are elegies con
taining consolation. Their unity is (a) in the subject, the
capture, destruction of Jerusalem and its temple, and over
throw of the country and dissolution of the nation. The
third chapter, although it chiefly laments the sufferings of
the author, according to Abraham Ibn Ezra's commentary,
is also an elegy on the discomfited and exiled Israel ; and
(6) in the artistical construction of these poems. Each
chapter consists of twenty-two stanzas, and each stanza in
the first four chapters begins with a letter of the Hebrew
alphabet in the usual order, only in chapters ii. and iv. the
Pai (5) precedes the Ayim (J^), otherwise the alphabetical
acrostic is perfect. In the third chapter there are three
verses to each letter, beginning with the same letter, and in
the last chapter the alphabetical order is omitted, but the
number twenty-two is preserved. In meter, the first and
second chapters are alike ; each stanza, consisting of three
lines, each line of three or two feet (words), or two and
three, or four as an exception. The third chapter with its
threefold alphabet is in meter somewhat diff'erent, its lines
— two to each stanza — are mostly of 3-2 or 2-2. The fourth
and fifth chapters also divide each stanza in two lines, each
line in 3-2 or 2-2 feet. It is evident, therefore, that we
have before us in this l/ook or scroll carefully and artistic •
ally constructed poetry and no irregular effusion of senti
ment and thought as in the books of Jeremiah or Ezekiel.
This is also evident from the numerous metaphors, similes,
apostrophes and personifications in this book. As a poet
ical production of a high order this book is no less remark
able than it is for the depth and warmth of its patriotic
sentiments and its word painting of the profoundest grief
and affliction over a nation's downfall and a country's
catastrophe. The destruction of neither Troy nor Car
thage, Nineveh nor Babylon produced an elegaic monument
of similar grandeur and sublimity.
27. Three times before its destruction Jerusalem was
besieged and captured by the Babylonians supported by

134 Hagiography.
Syrians, Edomites, Moabites and Amonites, viz. : under
King Jehoiakim (2 Kings xxiv. 1), under King Jehoiachin
(ibid., verses 11-16), and from the ninth to the eleventh
year of King Zedekiah (ibid. xxv. 1). The second king
together with his princes and high dignitaries was carried
into captivity (2 Kings xxiv.; 2 Chronicles xxxvi.),
and the last king was deprived of his eyesight after
his children had been slaughtered, and was then dragged
into captivity. All these calamities of the three invasions
and their destructive eff'ects together with the destruction
of Jerusalem and the temple are lamented in the three
chapters of Lamentations, beginning with the word Aichah,
viz., the first, second and fourth, evidently blended in the
poet's mind into one prolonged catastrophe, as if all the
disastrous events had happened simultaneously. The third
chapter is the elegy of the author written in the first person,
in which he sings in melancholy strains his own painful
fate in that time of disaster and defeat, destruction and
annihilation, together with the sorrow and grief which
overwhelmed the wounded patriot at the sight of his peo
ple's misery and his country's destruction, rising, however,
from under the thick cloud of that double misery to the
luminous height of light, consolation and hope, with his
trust in God and his grace. It seems that the third and
fourth chapters should be reversed, which would make of
the four chapters a continuous elegy, setting forth, in the
first place, the greatness of the nation's calamity and disas
ter and its eff"ect on the poet's mind ; then his own personal
afflictions, which depress and deject his soul; and then,
notwithstanding the double grief and the hopeless future
before him, his trust in God, his source of consolation, and
his unshaken faith in the grace of the Almighty. As the
order of the chapters is now, it seems that chapters iv. and
V. belong to another author ; one who not only mourns over
the past events, but also laments in chapter v. the present
state of misery and the cheerless future of his vanquished
people in the power of a despotic conqueror and fierce ene
mies ; and yet, like the first author, he rises above all disas-

Pronaos to Holy Writ. 135
ter and benighting prospect of the future to consolation
and hope by and with his faith and trust in God's loving
kindness, with which the fifth chapter closes so pathetic
ally. There can hardly be any doubt that the prophet
Jeremiah was the author of the first three chapters of
Lamentations. If the fourth and fifth chapters belong to
another author he must have been a cotemporary of Jere
miah, as none but an eye-witness could produce so vivid
and impressive a description of any event. Therefore, we
may set the date of Lamentations between 586 and 560
B. C, the year of King Jehoiachin's release from prison ; for,
after that event, as is evident from Isaiah's orations, the
feeling of pain and grief over the nation's fall and the fate
of the vanquished could not have been as fierce and oppres
sive any longer as it appears in the closing chapters of
Lamentations. The question, if Jeremiah was its author,
why was it placed in the third and not in the second canon ?
is easily answered, viz : because Lamentations are no proph
ecies, and the second is the prophetical canon. It is no
less easy to tell when he wrote these elegies viz : after the
captors of Jerusalem had taken him from his prison and he
had gone along with other prisoners in chains as far as
Ramah, where Nebuzradan released him and he went back
to Mizpah and staid there with Gedaliah till he was
forced to go with the assassins to Egypt, which was at
least two months after the fall of Jerusalem. In Ramah he
began his lamentations (Jeremiah ix.). There the prophet
ical lyre was tuned to the melancholy strains of the elegy
(ibid. xxxi. 15). Hence it follows that Jeremiah wrote his
Kinnoth (his former Kinnoth were lost, 2 Chronicles xxv.)
in the months of Abh and Elul, 586 B. C. He may have
written the last chapters after his return from Egypt, when
the eff'ects of the conquest had become most bitterly felt.
28. The book or scroll of Esther consists of ten chapters
of one hundred and sixty-seven verses, the middle of which
is iv. 7. It is a prosaic, well constructed narrative, ofwhich
tradition maintains it was written by the Men of the Great
Synod under the influence of the Holy Spirit. Abraham

136 Hagiography.
Ibn Ezra thinks it is a translation from a Medo-Persian
Chronicle. It is just as well possible that it was written in
Persia, when Antiochus Epiphanes invaded that country, to
encourage the rebellion in Judea, and the Men of the Great
Synod adopted it as the authentic narrative of that affair, a
number of which were in circulation, as is evident from the
Greek version, the two Aramaic versions, and the narrative
of Josephus. It contains an episode of the history of
Ahasuerus, a Medo-Persian king, who, after executing his
wife Vashti, selected as his consort out of many maidens a
daughter ofthe tribe of Benjamin, whose name was Esther
(a star) and also Hadassa (a myrtle). She was an orphan
adopted by her uncle, Mordechai, and, like him, a scion of
the ancient family of Kish, who was also the father of King
Saul. Ahasuerus knew not that she was a Jewess, nor that
she was the niece of Mordechai, who stood in some intimate
connection with the royal court. The king had a favorite
minister whose name was Haman, a scion ofthe royal house
of extinguished Amalek. He came in conflict with Morde
chai, who would not show the demanded honors to the
mighty minister. He contracted such a revengeful hatred
against Mordechai and his race that he obtained a decree
ofthe king that on a certain day in the month of Adar all
Hebrews should be slain by the populace and their property
to be free booty te the murderers. The decree was published,
and, according to the laws of that country, could never be
revoked. By the influence, however, of Mordechai upon
Queen Esther, and by her intercession with the king, the
murderous scheme was defeated, the mighty misister was
deposed and put to death, and the Hebrews were enabled to
defend themselves againt their assailants. The excited
populace, with a prospect of rich booty, rose on that given
day, according to the king's decree, to slaughter and spoliate
the unprotected Hebrews, who, however, were prepared to
meet their enemies, and made a great slaughter among them
in the city of Susa, and chiefly in the adjacent provinces
Mordechai became the prime minister of the king ; in con
sequence thereof, and perhaps chiefly on account of their

Pronaos to Holy Writ. 137
heroic defense, the Jews became much more respected
among the populace than before. The day after this, viz.,
the 14th day of Adar, and in the city of Susa also the 15th
day of Adar, were made days of festivities and rejoicings,
called " Purim." By order and request of Esther and Mor
dechai the Purim was established among all the Israelites in
aU countries. That the Purim existed before the book of
Esther was written is evident from the book itself (ix. 9-82.)
That this day of feasting and rejoicing was generally cele
brated among the Israelites ia evident from 2 Maccabees i.,
the account of Josephus, its mention in Meguilloth Thanith,
quoted also in the Talmud ( Thanith 186 and Meguillah 5c),
and from the rabbis of the first century, from and after
Rabbi Jochanan ben Saccai, who knew of special laws and
regulations concerning the Purim day, and the reading of
the Esther book on that day. The feast itself is consider
able testimony in favor of the fact related in the book, as
feasts, like fasts instituted by a nation, especially by Israel,
always commemorate a historical occurrence. Yet if the
Purim had been instituted soon after Ezra and Nehemiah,
it might be maintained that it was adopted from the Per
sian heathens ; but when the Hebrews had become most
zealous and scrupulous observers of the laws of Moses in
every detail, as they certainly were from and after the fourth
century B. C, such an adoption was clearly impossible.
The occurrence narrated in this book could not have hap
pened prior to Darius Hystaspis, because under his reign
the institution of the " Seven Princes of Persia and Media "
(Esther i. 14) was established. It could not have occurred
under Darius, Xerxes or Artaxerxes, as the authors of the
books of Ezra, Nehemiah and Chronicles must have noticed
the important event and prominent persons. The next fol
lowing three kings of Persia reigned together but twenty
years, with none of whom the dates of Esther correspond,
nor do they correspond to the reign of the two last kings
who reigned together but two years. There are left but Ar
taxerxes Mnemon, 404 to 859 B. C, and Darius Ochus, 859
to 338 B. C. We know of the former that during the last

138 Hagiography.
ten years of his reign a fine of fifty shekels for each lamb^
sacrificed in the temple was imposed upon the Hebrews,
and that was certainly not the Ahasuerus of Esther who
was so much infiuenced by Mordechai and Esther.* There
fore Darius Ochus only could be that Ahasuerus. To him
and his character every line and date fits exactly. He was
an enemy of the Hebrews and Phoenicians in the first year
of his reign. He made the feasts described in Esther, slew
eighty of his brothers, and became the indolent, sensuous
and foolish despot, Ahasuerus. Besides, he did not call
himself Darius ; he called himself Artaxerxes, son of Arta
xerxes, and so does the Syriac translator call (Esther i.)
Ahasuerus. The Purim story could not have occurred prior
to 345 B. C, and then there was no longer the barest possi
bility for Hebrews to adopt a Heathen festival, nor to invent
such a story on the Persian court. If it had been a fiction
it must have been located in India, Ethiopia or the Desert
of Arabia. Susa, the Persian court, and all about them
were too well known in Jerusalem to be thus misrepresented.
It is certain, from the book itself, that the Haman edict was
of a local nature, not for the 127 provinces, and the whole
occurrence transpired in Susa and adjacent country. There
fore, nothing was known about it in Jerusalem or the other
cities and provinces, and so the Purim feast was instituted
in Susa first and then by the infiuence of Queen Esther and
Mordechai also in Jerusalem, and from thence it spread all
over the dispersed Israel after the advent of Alexander the
Great. The book of Esther, however, it seSms was written
about 160 B. C.
29. The Book of Daniel is before us in twelve chapters
(modern division), seven Sedarim (ancient di-vdsion), 357
verses, the half of which is v. 30. It is Hebrew from i. 1 to
ii. 4 and viii. to the end of the book ; the part from ii. 4 to
vii. 28 in Aramaic, as it is called there (ii. 4), or Eastern
Syriac. Two peculiarities of this book are, that from i. to
vii. it records disconnected events, one in every chapter,
*See our History of the Hebrews' Second Commonwealth, p. 29-31.

Pronaos to Holy Writ. 139
and each is a miracle ; and from viii. to xii. it is a record of
apocalyptic prophecies. In the first part the author speaks
of Daniel in the third person, and in the second part Daniel
appears as the author, and always speaks of himself in the
first person. This, aside from the two languages ofthe book,
suggests that it was not written by one author.
There could be no doubt that Daniel really existed in
Babylon during the exile, a great and wise man, as outside
of this book we find his name in Ezekiel (xiv. 14 and xxviii.
3) among the most righteous and the wisest of his age, and
in the Grecian version of his book, in connection with the
narratives of Susanna and Bel and the Dragon. Nor could
it well be doubted that this Daniel did write, when Josephus
reports (Antiq. x. viii. 5), that one of Daniel's books was
shown in the temple of Jerusalem to Alexander the Great,
and further on ( x. xi. 7 1 speaks of several books of Daniel,
which, it appears, had been extant in the time of Josephus.
The question would only be, did he write this book, or any
parts thereof ? The Talmud states, the ' men of the Great
Synod wrote it, but this we know may refer only to the
compilation of the book as in the case of Ezekiel.
The narrative part of Daniel was certainly not written in
Judea, it being in diction and description by far superior to
any Aramaic production of Palestine. It was certainly
written where that language was the vernacular and had
skilled literati, which was the case in Babylon before its fall.
Each of those episodes closes with a special glorification of
the God of Israel, so that they appear to be myths, legends
or allegories based on facts, to impress the reader with the
special information that Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar and
Darius praised and glorified the God of Israel, seeing as
they did that the Lord wrought such extraordinary miracles
for his people, seemingly abandoned in captivity. Taken
in this sense, Daniel may have written these and many sim
ilar episodes, as the author of the book of Jonah did with
similar good, humane and patriotic intentions. The Tal
mud in Chelek takes a similar view, at least in one case,
the three men thrown into the fiery furnace, and the dead that

140 Hagiography.
Ezekiel . revived in the same valley of Dura. This view of
the subject anyhow accounts for the strange accident, that
none of the authors of that or any subsequent age refers to
those astounding miracles, and that Nebuchadnezzar, who
thus glorified the God of Israel, did not release King Jehoi
achin from his prison.
The prophetical portion of Daniel, from chapter viii. to xi.,
was certainly not written in Babylon. Had it been written
there during the captivity it must have become known
among the exiles and its author must have taken a high rank
among the prophets as well as Ezekiel, Haggai, Zechariah
and Malachi did, when the prophetical Canon was estab
lished by the Men of the Great Synod, and the book could
not have been placed among the volumes of Hagiography, as
was actually done. This part of the book, together with
the first chapter to ii. 4, which is an introduction, and chap
ter xii., which is a resume and conclusion of it, bears strong
imprints of Essenean doctrine, as reported by Josephus.
This sect at its inception was certainly identical with the
Hassidim of 1 Maccabees, the main support of the Macca
bees in their great struggle against Syria. This leads us
directly to the time when the Hebrew portion of Daniel
was written, to the occurrences of which in the time of
Antiochus Epiphanes and the victories of the Maccabees,
all those prophecies point.*
30. The seventh chapter of Daniel reports a dream of thd
author which one of the bystanders (verse 16) in that dream
expounded. Both the dream and its explanation are so
sublime, picturesque and mystic that almost any part of
history, or the entire historical process of humanity, could
* The seventy weeks of Daniel, about which so much was guessed
and written, begin with the first exile of the Israelites to Babylon,
when King Menassah waa carried to Babylon a vanquished captive
(2 Chronicles xxxiii. 11). That was the beginning of Israel's down
fall and loss of independence and nationality, from which it never
recovered till after the victories of the Maccabees, which established
again the independence of Israel, in round numbers seven times
seventy years after that flrst catastrophe.

Pronaos to Holy Writ. 141
be discovered in it, although the author evidently intended
to prophesy no more than the end of Babylon's power and
sovereignty. This is undoubtedly the part of the book of
Daniel shown to Alexander in the temple in which the
priests discovered the prophecy of the Macedonians'
victories and conquests. This very fact may have started
the belief among the expounders of the ancient oracles
that Daniel's predictions in that chapter reach to and far
beyond Alexander. When Antiochus Epiphanes began his
work of oppression, and schemed extermination in Judea, one
of the Essenean or Hassidim patriots, perhaps the deposed
high priest, Onias, or Mattathia himself, or his younger co-
temporary, Jose ben Joezer, wrote the introduction and the
Hebrew commentary to the book of Daniel, showing that
his prophecies refer to this age and its calamities, this
struggle and its victorious outcome, the fall and the rise of
Israel, the desecration and the consecration of its sanctuary
and priesthood — he calls the high priest Messiah and
prince — the end of servitude and the resurrection of Israel's
sovereignty. With this commentary, introduction and con
clusion, the book was circulated among the patriots, to fire
the souls with glowing patriotism and courage, and it was re
ceived and read with enthusiasm, and did well its intended
work. This procured for the book of Daniel in this form a
place in the Canon among the Hagiography, which was es
tablished after this event. We place, therefore, the Aramic
portion into the year 540 B. C, and the Hebrew portion
into the year 170 B. C, with Daniel as the author of the for
mer and perhaps Jose ben Joezer of the latter. He being at
the head of the Synod the tradition correctly maintains
that the Men of the Great Synod wrote or rather finished and
edited the book of Daniel.
31. Ezra and Nehemiah were taken as one book also by
the authors of the Massorah. The two books, as they are
before us, consist of Ezra, ten chapters, and Nehemiah,
thirteen chapters (modern division). In the Massorah
both books are quoted together as having ten Sedarim
(ancient division), 688 verses, the middle of which is Nehe-

142 Hagiography.
miah iu. 32. The Septuagint has three Esdras, viz. : i.
Esdras which is apocryphal and is neither mentioned nor
quoted in any of the Biblical or Rabbinical sources; ii.
Esdras (in some MSS. of the Septuagint i. Esdras) is
identical with the canonical Ezra, and iii. Esdras with the
canonical Nehemiah. That this division in the Septuagint
is recent is evident from the fact that neither the Massorah
nor the Talmud knew of it. Chapters iii. and iv. of the
apocryphal book are original, were adopted by Josephus
(Antiquities xiv. 5 and xi. 2) and contain sufficient internal
evidence, that the author was an African Hebrew, perhaps
identical with the author of II. Maccabees, or with that
Aristobul who wr&te commentaries for a king of Egypt in
the second century B. C*
32. The contents of Ezra and Nehemiah are episodes of
Israel's history 586 to 423 B. C, as follows :
Chapter i. (Ezra) begins with the closing verses of
Chronicles, the proclamation of Cyrus to the exiled Hebrews
to return to their ancient homes and to rebuild the temple
of Jerusalem, those remaining in the Medo-Persian Empire
to furnish them with substantial means, and the vessels of
gold and silver taken from the temple now returned to them.
Chapter n. A register of the families returning with Zeru
babel and Joshua, the high priest, their arrival in Palestine.
Chapter iii. The erection of the altar in Jerusalem;
reintroduction of the Mosaic cult ; celebration of the feasts
on the first and fifteenth days of the seventh month ; prepa
rations for the building of the temple and placing the
foundation stone.
Chapter jv. The Samaritans being refused co-operation
in the rebuilding of the temple, succeed in obtaining an
interdict from the Persian court under Cyrus and his suc-
* See our History of the Hebrews' Second Commonwealth, pp.
89, 131 e. s. There exists in Latin a fourth book of Ezra, or Reve
lations of Ezra, which belongs to the apocalyptic literature in the
time of the destruction of Jerusalem, without any claim to his
torical authenticity.

Pronaos to Holy Writ. 148
cessors, Cambyses and Smerdes,* and the work was inter
rupted. Chapter v. Haggai and Zechariah, the prophets, encour
age Zerubabel and Joshua to proceed with the building,
beginning of the reign of Darius II. , they do ; Tatnai and
others oppose it and write a letter to Darius to enforce the
interdiction. Chapter vi. Darius finds in Ecbatana the original edict
of Cyrus, ordains the completion of the temple, which is
completed the third day of Adar in the sixth year of Darius
II. ; the temple is dedicated ; the first Passover is celebrated
by the returning exiles. This ends the first part of the
book. The second part begins fifty-eight years later.
Chapter vn Artaxerxes sends Ezra with a second
colony, and gifts for the temple, to Jerusalem, appoints him
Chief Judge and promulgator of the Law in all provinces
west of the Euphrates, with sufficient executive authority.
Chapter viii. Register of the families returning with
Ezra, their journey and arrival in Jerusalem, delivery of
the holy vessels and gifts.
Chapter ix. The princes accuse their brethren of having
taken foreign wives ; Ezra's prayer and address.
Chapter x. Ezra convenes a general meeting, to remedy
this evil, a representative body is appointed ; the names of
the main persons guilty of that transgression are ascertained
and registered. Here the book of Ezra closes abruptly.
Nehemiah i. opens thirteen years after Ezra's coming to
Jerusalem with Hanani reporting to Nehemiah the deplor
able condition of Jerusalem; Nehemiah's prayer.
Chapter ii. He asks permission of the king to visit his
country; he is appointed Pasha, and starts on his journey,
arrives in Jerusalem, inspects at night the walls of the city,
* Verses 6 and 7 they are called t^miB'nK and KHB'B'nmX, and the
former can not be identical with his namesake in the book of
Esther, nor the latter with KHDB'nn'iK or Artaxerxes in chapter 7.
It seems, therefore, that those kings had different names in the
Aramaic and Persian, as is evident partly from the Persian sources
and the inscriptions, and Herodotus Grecised the one or the other.

144 Hagiography.
tells the rulers his mission, is scorned by Sanbelat, Tobiah
and Geshem.
Chapter iii. The building of the walls of Jerusalem.
Chapter iv. Tribulations and hostilities against which
he contended.
Chapter v. Liberating the poor and enslaved ; his own
disinterestedness and self-sacrificing work.
Chapter ti. Dissensions, tribulations and hostilities at
home and from abroad are overcome.
Chapter ¦vti. Military organization and orders for the
protection ofthe city ; reviewing and completing the register
of the families that had returned from Babylon.
Chapter viii. Presenting, reading and expounding to
the people the Law of Moses on the first day of the seventh
month by Ezra and Nehemiah ; celebration of the Feast of
Tabernacles. Chapter ix. Second public meeting and reading of the
Law; address ofthe Levites.
Chapter x. Solemn acceptance of the Law of Moses as
the law of the newly organized State, a document signed by
the representative Levites, Rulers and Priests, and confirmed
by an oath; ordinances added to the Law by Ezra and
Nehemiah. Chapter xi. The names of the men who moved from the
country into Jerusalem ; organization of the Levites ; ap
pointment of Patachiah as the king's agent ; the districts
of the country.
Chapter xii. Another and later register of priests and
Levites ; the dedication of the walls of Jerusalem. This
ends the account of Nehemiah's twelve years' administra
tion. He returns to Susa, comes back to Jerusalem in 424
or 423 and then occurs what is narrated in chapter xiii.
38. The language in these two books is the plain Hebrew
prose with the exception of the official documents from the
Persian court or addressed to it, which are Aramaic. Very
few Aramisms are in the Hebrew portions, except the names
of persons, places, coins, official documents and offices.
Some of the Hebrew pieces like Ezra ix, 6-15 ; Nehemiah

Pronaos to Holy Writ. 145
i. 5-11 ; ix. 8-37, although full of reminiscences, sound clas
sically pure. The diction gives us no points on hand to as
certain when these books were written.* It is certain that
the first part of Ezra, including the seventh chapter to verse
27, was written prior to the next part. It is a mere compilation
of documents which must have been preserved in the temple.
It is written all in the third person, the author never speaks
of himself. He narrates briefly in chapter vii. 1-10, what is
actually narrated in chapter viii., so that it does not seem
that one author wrote both, and besides, he describes and
lauds Ezra (vii. 6, 10) in a manner which Ezra would not
have said of himself. He makes Ezra a son of Sheraiah,
the last high priest in the Temple of Solomon, slain after
its destruction by Nebuchadnezzar (2 Kings xxv. 18; Jere
miah lii. 24), whose great grandson he could hardly have
been, as Ezra came to Jerusalem 128 years after the death
of Sheraiah. Whether it was the intention of the writer to
suggest that Ezra was the descendant of the last high priest
and the lawful heir by the right of primogeniture and the
Joshua dynasty was a second line by Jehozadek ; or what
ever other intention he had ; thus much is sure that Ezra
would not have denied his father. The same author does
a similar thing, and it seems for the same reason, with
Zerubabel, whom he calls son of Shealthiel, when he actually
was the son of Pedaiah, but the former was the second son
of King Jehoiachin, Assur was the first born (1 Chron. iii.
17, 18).
The next parts of Ezra and Nehemiah, from vii. 5 to
the end of the second book, are purely Hebrew and in the
*The supposition of some critics, that the King of Persia ia called
(Ezra vi. 22) "King of Ashshur" (Assyria), points to the time of
the Seleucidic kings— provided " Ashshur " signifies Syria, which
is never the case— is a mistaken notion, as Cyrus was also King of
Assyria, and in that passage is also referred to the exiles of the
children of Israel from Assyria and the proselytized Gentiles (verse
21) after the exiles from Babylon in verse 19; the author calls
Cyrus King of Assyria. It must be borne in mind that many of
the northern tribes also returned with Judah and Benjamin.

l46 Hagiography.
first person, the authors narrate their own stories in their
own words. These portions of the book present themselves
as the original writings of Ezra and Nehemiah, and there
exists no reason whatever to doubt it. Nehemiah ¦vii. 5 e. s.
is not identical with Ezra ii., the two accounts diff'er in the
various numbers of the men belonging to each family
returning from Babylon, although they agree in giving the
sum total, yet it seems evident that both accounts could
not have been written by the same author. Nehemiah viii.,
ix. and X., diff'erent entirely in diction from the rest of the
book, is an official document, written by an eye-witness of
that important aff'air (See UllJK and the following verbs in
chapter x.). Chapter xiii. is again Nehemiah's own.
34. It is evident that the first part of Ezra (i.-vii.) was
compiled by an earlier historian than the rest of Ezra and
Nehemiah, and not long after the arrival of Ezra in Jeru
salem. It can not belong to the author of Chronicles,
although this latter book was known when Nehemiah xii.
23 was written, the Sepher Dibre Hayamim is expressly
referred to. Nor can it be questionable that the author of
Nehemiah xi. and xii. was the compiler of the books of
Ezra and Nehemiah, as they are now in the Canon. This
compiler must have flourished about 350 B. C, as he men
tions the six high priests from Joshua to Jaddua (xii. 10,
11), and we know that the third was in office in the time of
Nehemiah (iii. 20), and from Josephus that the last was
still alive when Alexander the Great appeared before the
walls of Jerusalem. In the Talmud, however, it is main
tained that Simon the Just was that high priest. If this
passage is not a later addition, the two books could not
have been compiled long before 350 B. C, about sixty to
seventy years after the death of Nehemiah, in the time of
Darius Ochus, whose name seems especially to be men
tioned xi. 22, and he reigned from 859-337 B. C. But then
it seems strange that this compiler betrays no knowledge
of the three great events which occurred prior to 350 B. C,
viz : the building of the temple on Mt. Guerizim, the high
priest John slaying his brother Jesus in the temple, and the

Pronaos to Holy Writ. 147
Haman persecution under King Ahasueros. It would seem,
therefore, that the Darius in Nehemiah refers to Darius
Nothus, who reigned from 423 to 404 B. C, and the passage
of the six high priests is either a later addition, or th6 Tal
mud has the correct tradition, viz : that the grandson of
Jaddua, Simon the Just, was the high priest who received
Alexander the Great. Simon died 292 B C, after a reign
of forty years. His father reigned thirty years ; this brings
Jaddua down to the year 862 B. C. If so, Ezra and Nehe
miah were compiled during the life-time of Jaddua at any
time between 390 and 360 B. C, within a few decades after
the death of Nehemiah, prior to the fratricide in the temple
which occurred in 372.
35. Chronicles i. and ii. is before us in 29 and 36 chapters
(modern division), 25 Sedarim (ancient division), 1,656
verses, the half of which is I. Chronicles xxvii. 25. The con
tents of this book are I. Chronicles i. to viii., the genealogy
of the principal families in Israel, beginning with Adam
and continuing to the Babylonian exile, with many histor
ical notes not found elsewhere in the Bible.
1 Chronicles ix. The families living in Jerusalem before
its destruction, together with the offices of the various
Levitical families, and closing with the genealogy of King
Saul. 1 Chronicles x. The end of King Saul according to the
Book of Samuel
1 Chronicles xi. to xxix. is the history of David as King
of all Israel, according to the Book of Samuel, with many
additions and omissions, but no contradiction of facts.
2 Chronicles i. to ix. is the history of Solomon accord
ing to the Book of Kings, with many additions and omis
sions, and no contradiction of facts.
2 Chronicles x. The di^vision of the kingdom in Judah
and Israel, Rehoboam and Jeroboam.
2 Chronicles xi. to the end of the book narrates the his
tory of the Kings of Judah to 586 B. C, omitting the history
of the prophets and the Kings of Israel, adding to the
history of the temple and its priesthood, and closing with a

148 Hagiography.
brief reference to the Babylonian captivity and the edict of
Cyrus 536 B. C.
As the author of Kings wrote chiefly the history of Israel
and the prophets with mere references to the Kings of
Judah, the temple and its servants, so the author of Chron
icles wrote chiefly that part of history which the former
omitted. He evinces no animosity to Israel, and even
records of it deeds of magnanimity (2 Chron. xxv. 17-24 ;
xxviii. 8-15). He accounts for his additions to the books
of Samuel and Kings by pointing to the ancient documents
before him in their original form as they were before the
authors of the former historical books, the public records
and the books and scrolls of prophets as well, to which he
invariably refers, except in the historical notes contained
in the genealogies (chapter i.-viii). This part of the book,
however, is ascribed to Ezra, and must be considered sepa
rately. That his additions are historically correct is proved
by his story of King Manassah's captivity in Babylon,*
which is omitted in Kings, and was found noticed in the
Babylonian inscriptions.
36. Characteristic of Chronicles' additions to Samuel and
Kings is :
(a) The author's endeavors to rouse patriotism in the
hearts of his people, encouraging the exiles to return to
Palestine, and the returned to be faithful and hopeful in
their work of reconstruction. In this particular point he
re-echoes the prophecies of Jeremiah (xxx. and xxxi.), and
he makes mention of him (2 Chron. xxxv. 25) and of his
prophecies (ibid, xxxvi. 21, 22). He re-echoes also the
prophecies of Ezekiel (xxxvi. and xxxvii. especially) and
does not mention him nor Daniel, who must have flourished
prior to the issue of the edict of Cyrus, with reference to
which Chronicles closes. This omission only proves that
its author writing from existing written records and books
only, to which he always refers, had no knowledge of the
* See Schrader's " Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testa
ment," page 366.

Pronaos to Holy Writ. 149
books of Daniel and Ezekiel, as in the case of the latter the
Talmudical record maintains, to have been compiled and
edited by the men of the Great Synod.
(6) The center and symbol of this patriotism, faith and
hope is in the temple on Mount Moriah, its cult, rites,
priesthood, builders and supporters. He glorifies David
and Solomon, the builders of the temple, by numerous
additions, and also by characteristic omission of incidents
which mar their glory; as the story of Uriah and Bath
Sheba, the rebellions of Absalom and Sheba, his conduct
toward Saul and his descendants in the case of David;
and the idolatry favored by Solomon, the rebellions occur
ring in his days, the prophecies of Ahiah, the Shilonite, in
the case of Solomon. He is less partial and more severe
on the dynasty, except those kings who did something for
the temple, the promulgation of the Thorah among the peo
ple, or the glorification of priests and Levites. He narrates
the faults and shortcomings also of the best kings, like
Asa, Jehoshaphat, Jotham and Hezekiah.
(c) About the priesthood and the temple service the
Chronist's additions are most profuse in his accounts of
the organizations of the priests and Levites, the psalm
ody, the musical instruments, the musicians and singers,
especially of the ancient families of Asaph, Heiman and
Ethan. He pays much less attention to the sacrifices and
the priests than he does to music, song and psalmody.
The Levites occupy the foreground in all his additions to
the books of Samuel and Kings.
This entitles us to the conclusion that the Chronist had
three main objects in view, viz : to produce a detailed his
tory of the kings ; to glorify the temple as the center of
Israel's pride and patriotism ; and to enhance and beautify
the temple service by the reintroduction of Davidian psalm
ody and orchestras, Levitical choruses, stately guards and
ministers ; all of which disappeared among the last of the
pro'phets from their speeches, especially in Ezekiel's vision
of the future temple, and had no prominent place in the
earlier prophets' writings. The fort of this historian is in

150 Hagiography.
urging this reform, this addition to the sacrificial polity,
and to prove from the documents at his command that this
psalmody, orchestras and choruses, always were the most
important part of the temple service, and also prior to that
in the time of David and Samuel. The decline of the tem
ple service at diff'erent times, especially after the reign of
Jehoshaphat and later on after Hezekiah, was chiefly in the
reduction and neglect of the poetical and musical depart
ments, and the concentration of all piety and worship in
the sacrificial rites, as is evident from the objections urged
by prophets and psalniists against the sacrifices.
37. The diction of the Chronist is a clear prose without
any attempt at ornamentation, the popular style of the
narrative in his days. So the people in the author s time
spoke and wrote. In doctrine and historical data he is in
perfect harmony with all the other books of the Bible.
His peculiarities consist of the following points :
(a) The Aramaic forms in grammar, phraseology, terms,
names of persons, places and things, use of adverbs and
prepositions, the addition of letters in the middle of a name,
changing the Hebrew Hai (,1) into the Aramaic Aleph at
the end of a word, transposing the Yeho (IP?*) from the
beginning of a name to its end or changing into El, trans
literating, abbreviating or replacing letters by others similar
in sound then and there, are chief characteristics of Chroni
cles, much more so than of any other book of the Bible.
(6) New nouns and verbs derived from Hebrew or also
Aramaic roots abound in this book.
(c) The silent or Hebrew vowel letters 'M Hai, Vav, Yud,
are frequently added in words, in which in older books they
are omitted. Many of the Keri and Kethib marked in mar
ginal notes of Samuel and Kings are replaced by the
correct Keri in the text ; and a number of obscure or incor
rect passages in those books are corrected in Chronicles.
Point c shows that Chronicles was written later than the
books of Samuel and Kings, and even then none dared
make any correction, any kind of change in those ancient
books.

Pronaos to Holy Writ. 151
Points a and 6 prove that Chronicles was written where
and when the people's language had been Aramized to a
large extent, and the correct pronunciation of Hebrew
words, even popular names like that of David required the
assistance of vowel letters.
This could have been the case only in Babylon among
the exiles, or very shortly after their return to Palestine.
After their return they rapidly improved in the Hebrew
language, as is evident not only from the books and psalms
written then, but also from the notes of Ezra and Nehemiah
and the speeches of the prophet Haggai, which were certainly
addressed to the general public. The complaint of Nehe
miah (xiii. 24) that the children of alien mothers did not
know how to speak Hebrew, only proves that all others could
and did speak 'the Hebrew well. Chronicles must have been
written before Ezra and Nehemiah came to Palestine, or if
by Ezra, which the Talmudical tradition maintains not, he
certainly wrote it in the earlier days of his life in Babylon.
There is nothing in the body of the book, i. e., from 1 Chroni
cles X. to the end of 2 Chronicles, which points to any time
later than Zerubabel's return to Palestine ; but there are in
the first part (i. to ix.) traces of a later time, which must be
considered. 38. The nine chapters in the beginning of Chronicles are
ascribed to Ezra in the Talmudical tradition. In the main
they are transcripts from genealogies recorded in Penta
teuch, Joshua, Samuel and Kings, to which are added
genealogies especially of the tribes of Judah, Levy, Benja
min, the transjordanic tribes, with short notices on the
tribes of Ephraim, Simeon and Dan, all of which was com
piled from works no longer extant, to establish the claims
of those families to purity of blood and right of possession in
their diff'erent districts and towns, founded originally by
their ancestors. The reason for this imperfect record — only
a small number of families and founders of towns are men
tioned — is obvious. Ezra's work was intended to establish
the legal claims of such families that either had never left
(not all members thereof did) their original possessions

152 Hagiography.
in Palestine, or had returned from the exile prior to or
cotemporary with Ezra (1 Chronicles iv. 41-43 and v. 16-
22). Chapter vi. is an ancient document, which may have
been written in the time of King David or Solomon, if it
begins v. 27 as maintained in the Septuagint. It was placed
here to give prominence to the purely Levitical families,
especially of Heiman and Asaf, and the priestly line from
Phineas, their titles to certain towns and districts, which
had been deserted by some of them already in the time of
Jeroboam (2 Chronicles xi. 14), and many more of them
in course of time abandoned their vocation and neglected
their genealogies (Ezekiel xliv. 9-24; Ezra ii. 59-63).
Chapter ix. is a record of families that lived in Jerusalem
prior to the exile, and Nehemiah xi. reports the inhabitants
of Jerusalem after their return from the exile. Only one
passage in 1 Chronicles iii. 19-24 is pointed out to prove
that it must have been written after Ezra, and that is a
mistake. We find there the genealogy of Zerubabel, the
lineal descendant of the Davidian kings, by Pedaiah, son
of Shealthiel, son of King Jehoiachin, or Jechoniah. Then
verses 19 and 20 are given the eight children of Zerubabel.
Verse 21 are given the names of two grandsons of Zerubabel,
and four side families of the Davidian house, and again
three generations of one of these families (Shechaniah's).
Without any good reason these four families are taken as
descendants of Zerubabel, and they with their descendants,
and following the descendants of Zerubabel would make
seven generations and bring the author of this passage to
200 years after Zerubabel, about 300 B. C, while in fact Ezra
and Nehemiah flourished in the third generation of Zeru
babel (Nehemiah iii. 4 ; vi. 18, 80). There is no cause to
gainsay the Talmudical tradition that Ezra wrote the Book
of Genealogies to himself ^b IJ^. Nor can there be any
doubt he wrote from a^uthentic written sources, old official
records lost to us. This is evident from the historical
notices reaching as far back as to the sons of Ephraim and
Benjamin in the land of Goshen (1 Chronicles vi. 21-28;
viii. 13) ; Jabez and the city of scribes in the early days of

Pronaos to Holy Writ. 153
the Judges (ibid. U. 55; iv. 9) ; one of the house of Kaleb,
who had for a wife Bithiah, the daughter of Pharaoh (ibid.
iv. 18) ; the exploits of the sons of Simeon before and
during the Ufe-time of King Hezekiah (ibid. iv. 39-42) ; the
exploits .of the Reubenites in the time of King Saul (ibid.
V. 6, 19) ; the inhabitants of Gilead had been counted and
registered in the time of King Jotham and Joroboam II.
(ibid. V. 17) ; that a granddaughter of Ephraim, Shearah,
built three towns (ibid. vi. 24) ; of all of which we have no
notice in any other book. The author tells us (ibid. ix. 1)
that all Israel had been carefully registered in the book of
the Kings of Israel and of Judah, before they were exiled
to Babylonia, which tells us one of his sources, and also the
reason for not going into any further details.
89. We have in fact before us four books :
(a) The book of Chronicles proper from 1 Chronicles x.
to the end of 2 Chronicles, written in Babylonia or very
shortly after the return from the exile, written by a reform
atory prophet or Levite in that period about 500 B. C.
(6) The nine chapters of genealogy, written by Ezra
before his return to Palestine about 460 B. C.
(c) The documentary history of Zerubabel and his time
with the arrival of Ezra in Palestine, written about 457 B. C,
now Ezra i.-vi.
(d) The notes of Ezra and Nehemiah, written by them
selves between 458 and 423 B. C, compiled in one book, the
main book of Ezra and Nehemiah about 360 B. C.
The Men of the Great Synod connected these four books
into Chronicles and Ezra in chronological order.
The difficulties in these books are the extravagant num
bers, which occur frequently, and the change of names for
the same persons, for which it is easier to account, but there
is none in the narrative except 2 Chronicles xxii., where it
is stated that King Ahaziah was forty-two years old on
mounting the throne of Judah as immediate successor of
his father, Jehoram, of whom it is stated three verses before
that he was forty years old when he died. This is evidently
a mistake, not made by the author, but by some transcriber

154 Hagiography.
who mistook the kaf (20) for a mem (40) without seeing
that in 2 Kings Ahaziah is said to have been twenty-two
years old, and almost the whole account in 2 Kings ¦viii. 26
is literally copied in Chronicles ¦with the addition of " the
youngest son " of Joram.

CHAPTER VI.
THE AUTHENTICITY OF THE PENTATEUCH.
THE traditions of the Hebrew people and documentary
evidence before us preclude the theory of that school of
modern criticism which places the Pentateuch at or near
the close of the prophetical millenium, as the product of
historical development. Prior to Abraham Ibn Ezra, in
the twelfth century, none expressed any doubt that Moses
was the author of the entire book, excepting only the clos
ing passage of Deuteronomy, which some rabbis in the Tal
mud ascribe to Joshua ; and he merely suggests that a few
historical notes must be of later origin than the body of the
book. They may have been added by transcribers or copy
ists as marginal notes first, which were then amalgamated
with the text. After him some other passages of the same
kind were pointed out — one by Moses Nachmanides — but
neither of them changed the traditional belief in the authen
ticity of the Pentateuch, so that this very day the minister,
taking out the Scroll of the Law from the ark during divine
service, tells his congregation : " This is the Thorah which
Moses put before the children of Israel." The exceptions
are but few and recent. The entire post-biblical literature,
both the apocryphal and rabbinical, reaching in some of its
parts as far back as to the days of Ezra and Nehemiah, and
down to the sixth Christian century, records the universal
existence of this tradition in Israel, independent of the
same records in the Greco-Judaic and the early Christian
literature. 2. The documentary evidence is either direct or indirect.
The direct evidence is the following :
(a) The statement in the Pentateuch : Genesis v. 1, the
Sepher Tholedoth Adam is noticed ; and Sepher signifies a

156 The Authenticity op the Pentateuch.
book, a something written by somebody. Tholedoth is usu
ally rendered " genealogies," but it signifies also the birth
of events, the narration of facts,* so that the narrative
of every prominent progenitor begins with the same words,
Eleh Tholedoth, also without speaking of descendency,
as in xxv. 19 and xxxvii. 2, There can be no doubt
that the author of Genesis intended to inform us that he
had before him written records of genealogies and events,
which he adopted, or adapted. Exodus xvii. 14, we are in
formed that Moses began to write the Book of the Wars of
Jehovah (see above Chapter IL, p. 28). Ibid. xxiv. 12 and
xxxiv. 1 we are told that God wrote for Moses the inscriptions
on the two tablets of stone, also Thorah and commandment.
Ibid. xxiv. 4 and xxxiv., we are informed that Moses wrote
the Book of the Covenant and a special copy of the Deca
logue. From Numbers xi. 26 we learn that the names of
seventy-two elders were written down, who were most likely
the heads of tribes and the heads of family groups men
tioned by name elsewhere in Numbers. Then writing is
mentioned again, xvi. 17-18. Ibid, xxxiii. 2 we are told ex
pressly that Moses wrote the book, or scroll, of the " So
journs," Eleh Massei, which, it appears from the context,
contained also the history of the exodus and the events
which occurred in the wilderness. The practice of writing
as a religious duty is commanded not only to the priest
(Numbers v. 23), to the presumptive king (Deuteronomy
xvii. 18), to the leaders of the people crossing the Jordan
ibid, xx-vii. 3-8) and to the Judges (ibid. xxiv. 1), but also
to every occupant of any house (ibid. vi. 9 and xi. 20)-
Then it is noticed again that God wrote the inscriptions
on the two tables of stone (ibid. x. 2-4) ; that Moses has
commanded " to read" this Thorah publicly at stated times
(ibid xxxi. 11) ; that he wrote Deuteronomy and delivered it
to the priests and all the elders ofthe people (ibid. xxxi. 9-
24) ; and that he wrote another Book of the Thorah, which
he delivered to the Levites, the bearers of the ark of the
* Genesis vi. 9 ; ix. 1 ; xi. 10 ; xxv. 12-19 ; xxxvi. 1 ; xxxvii. 2.

Pronaos to Holy Writ. 157
covenant, to be placed as a testimony at the side of the ark
(ibid, verse 25). Then again we are informed (ibid, verses
19 and 21) that Moses began also to write the Book of
Jashar (see above Chapter II. , p. 28), and commanded the
people to copy and commit to memory his last song.
These direct statements of facts can not legitimately be
explained away as metaphoric or symboUc language. They
can not be disposed of as interpolations, as they are not in
contradiction with the known origin of alphabetical writing
and literature among the Shemites of Asia or Africa. In
order to bring the Pentateuch down to post-prophetical
times, or any time after Moses, all these and many more
passages must be declared fraudulent interpolations, will
ful deceptions, which is certainly an illegitimate verdict in
this case, when the entire book treats on the loftiest ideals
of humanity and spirituality, without any selfish motive or
any attempt in favor of any person, community or nation,
and without any contradiction to reason, or the experience
of mankind. This excludes every possible motive of fraud
and willful deception. All that can be derived from these
various statements against the authenticity of the Penta
teuch is that the repetition of these statements in those par
ticular places of the book may prove that not all in that
book was written by Moses ; but also this seems to conflict
with Deuteronomy xxxi. 25, and it would only remain to be
proved that the entire Pentateuch as now before us is of
Mosaic origin.
(6) The word " Thorah," with prefixes or suffixes, or with
Jehovah, Elohim or Moses connected with it, occurs in the
Bible no less than two hundred and forty-six times, as every
reader can see in any Hebrew concordance. The frequent
recurrence of this word in the historical books (except in
Judges and Samuel), in Prophets from Amos to Malachi,
in Psalms, Proverbs, Job, throughout the entire Biblical
literature, although in some instances it may not refer to
the written Thorah, certainly proves that something real and
authoritative must have always existed, generally known
as " Thorah," so that prophets and psalmists could in some

158 The Authenticity of the Pentateuch.
instances call also their own teachings Thorah. Recurring
some fifty times with the definite article (n) in hat-Thora,
bat-Thorah and kat-Thorah, it must evidently refer to a
reality, and not to the mere preaching of this or that
prophet. Appearing with the word Sepher, " book," or ka-
kathub," asit is written," before it, we know that itis abook
written. Again, the term Thorah appearing in connection
with Mitzvah, " commandment," or Chukkim, " statutes," or
Mishpatim, " ordinances," we know it is a book in which
also commandments, statutes and ordinances occur. If we
then find this written book qualified as the Thorah of Jeho
vah, the Thorah of Elohim and the Thorah of Moses, we
know that this term refers to a well-known book which con
tains also commandments, statutes and ordinances, which
according to the records was always known and believed to
be of God and written by Moses. That the word Thorah
appears in Holy Writ in all the connections noticed is evi
dent from any Hebrew concordance. If in any special case
the word Thorah refers to the teaching of any prophet or
psalmist, it must be proved, in every instance, after we know
that generally it means the Thorah of Moses.
That the authors of Judges and Samuel had no occasion
to mention the' Thorah does not invalidate the argument.
For in the oldest piece in the book of Judges, the revelation
on Mount Sinai is mentioned, viz. : In the song of Deborah
(Judges V. 4, 5),* besides which there are in both these
books frequent references to the Thorah, as shall be no
ticed below. In Samuel, to which belongs also the first,
second and part of the third chapter of Kings, the Thorah
is very explicitly mentioned (1 Kings ii. 4), to which is
referred also in Psalms i. 2 ; xviii. 81 ; and xix. 8. Again
the book of Joshua was written prior to Judges and Samuel
(see Chap. III. pp. 39-41), in which the Thorah is mentioned
too often and too explicitly to doubt its existence then ; the
*This is taken from Deuter. xxxiii. 2. The song of Deborah has
become the text to the ancient Davidian Shir, Psalm ixviii., where
Judah only is added to the tribes praised by Deborah for patriotism
and heroism.

Pronaos to Holy Writ. 1.59
Davidian Psalms and the Solomonic Proverbs shortly after
the book of Samuel testify no less than Joshua to the exist
ence of the Thorah then ; hence the absence of the word
Thorah in those two books could be but accidental, unless
it be maintained that in the interim the Thorah was sus
pended, neglected, violated and forgotten, which does not
gainsay the authenticity of the Pentateuch, and can not be
sustained in the face of the facts that there are in the books
of Judges and Samuel numerous quotations from and refer
ences to the Thorah, both its historical and juridical por
tions and its poetical tropes.
The position, that those historical books. Psalms and
Proverbs, were written or rewritten with fraudulent inten
tions during the Babylonian exile or thereafter, has been
disposed of in the former chapters of this book. What was
written during or close to that exile besides Ezekiel, the
first part of Daniel, and parts of the twelve Minor Prophets,
is the main portion of the book of Chronicles ; and this
proves beyond any doubt that in its time the antiquity of
the historical books was so well established that no correc
tions of mistakes even would be permitted in those old
monuments. (c) The origin of the fundamental institutions and appa
ratuses, inseparable from the political and ecclesiastical
life and the historical process of the ancient Israel, is
described in the Thorah only; and in all other books of
Holy Writ not even a remote intimation of the origin of
those institutions and apparatuses can be discovered. This
demonstrates at once the existence of the Thorah prior to
all other books of the Bible. Such institutions are :
A. The division and organization of the nation in thirteen
tribes, the sons of Joseph as two tribes, each with its own
Nassi or prince of the tribe, each tribe divided into family
groups, and each group into natural families, two and a
half of those tribes located east of the Jordan River, and ten
and a half tribes west of the .Jordan located in their exact
districts to the very end of their national existence, where
they were, when Deborah and Barak in the century after

160 The Authenticity of the Pentateuch.
Joshua sang their celebrated hymn, and then this tribal
di^vision and location was already a matter of history. The
originis noticed in the Thorah only. (Genesis xlviii. 5;
xlix. 28; Exodus xxviu. 6-30; Numbers i. and vii. ; xxvi.
11-65; xxxii. and xxxiv.; Joshua xiii.-xxii. ; compare
1 Chronicles ii. to ix.)
B. The fundamental institution of the Seventy Elders
with all the ideas of the federal and representative form of.
government, which, according to the unanimous testimony
of the Bible, Josephus and the Talmud always existed in
Israel unless momentarily suspended by some despotic
king ; and yet there is no mention or intimation of its origin
except in Numbers xi. and Deuter. xvii. 8 ; yet they are
there in Joshua xiv. ; Judges xxi. ; 1 • Samuel viii. 4 ; 2
Samuel iii. 17 and v. 3 ; 1 Kings viii. 3 ; at every import
ant national event down to the prophet Jeremiah's time.
C, The continuous existence of prophets from Moses to
Nehemiah for one thousand years (see Chapter IV., p. 61)
with precisely the same pretensions of being the messen
gers and mouthpieces of the same God, with the same
religious principles and ethical doctrine, the very same
system of righteousness which the Thorah prescribes and
defines, without yielding or even inclining at any time
to any foreign doctrine and without advancing or even
intimating anywhere that any one of them taught any doc
trine, principle or law not known before to the Hebrews ;
so that the Talmud could maintain that forty-eight prophets
and seven prophetesses prophesied, and they added naught
and took naught away from what is written in the Thorah.
(Meguillah Iia,) If this God-idea, these principles and
doctrines, this particular system of righteousness had not
been established authoritatively before the very first as
before th'j last of these prophets, their unanimity would
have been a matter of impossibility, as the history of
Grecian philosophy proves.
D. The sameness of the polity with the same Levitical
priests, upon the Bamoth or heights, as prescribed by Moses

Pronaos to Holy Writ. 161
(Exodus XX. 19, 23) and in the national sanctuary* (Num
bers xxviii.) in Shiloh, Nob, Gibeon and Jerusalemf from
the days of Joshua nearly fifteen hundred years, without
any intimation anywhere or of any one having introduced or
changed the same — points undeniably to an authoritative
Thorah prior to Joshua.
E, The Ark of the Covenant (pl^t), containing the two
tables of stone, the " Testimony " (JlllJ/), covered with the
golden lid and the two cherubim, (iinfi^) was there and
is noticed in the Biblical books at all times from Joshua to
Jeremiah ; and yet outside of the Thorah the origin of this
historical monument, this very heart and soul of the Mosaic
dispensation, doctrine and law, is noticed nowhere by state
ment or intimation. No less than one hundred and forty-
five times the Ark of the Covenant is expressly noticed after
the Pentateuch in the books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel,
*Moaea evidently permits the sacrificing upon Bamoth or altara
of earth or rough stone upon heights, not in the wilderness but in
the land of Canaan (Exodus xx. 20-23). This passage is further
expounded in Deuteronomy xii. where ?)it23t? inxa signifies in
any one of thy tribes or wherever the prophet will point out the
place, that God ¦will cause his name to be mentioned. Yet in after
times there was a continual difference between the prophets who
opposed the Bamoth and the kings and people who sustained them.
The law was undoubtedly there. This is evident from 2 Kings v.
17, where it is reported that the Syrian captain, Naaman, being con
verted to worship Jehovah, asked for earth to take along to his
country, to build of it an altar to Jehovah. It seems that then the
letter of the law in Exodus, verse 21, was understood literally that
the earth for the altar must be from Palestinean soil. Being per
mitted by the law and having become universal custom, the people
and also the most pious kings clung to it (See 2 Chronicles xxxiii.
17). Having become in many instances pagan altara the prophets
opposed the Bamoth, but never succeeded in overcoming the prac
tice, because the law permitted it. Had the Thorah been written
or revised at a late date by any of the prophets this passage in
Exodus must necessarily have been omitted together with Deuter
onomy xii.
t The sanctuary of Shiloh, with the uninterrupted continuation
of the same sacrificial polity, can not be doubted. It ia mentioned

162 The Authenticity of the Pentateuch. ^
Kings, Chronicles and Jeremiah, in connection with histori
cal events and always as a reality, being actually there when
such event or events occurred, as may be seen in any He
brew concordance. It is described as the "Ark of the Cove
nant," the "Ark of Jehovah," the "Ark of Elohim," the "Ark
of the Covenant of Jehovah," the "Ark of the Covenant of
Elohim," the "Ark of the God of Israel,'' and the "Ark of
the Covenant of Jehovah Zabaoth," -with the same Baddim,
or two bars in the rings on its two sides, and containing the
same two tables of stone in the time of King Solomon when
it was placed into the sanctum sanctorum of the temple,
where it certainly remained unchanged, the same until
Jeremiah, prior to the ' destruction of the temple, hid it,
together with the golden altar and the Mosaic tabernacle in
a cave on Mount Nebo (2 Maccabees ii. 4-6) ; or, as the Tal
mud and Maimonides have it, it was hid under the temple
in a secret chamber by King Joshiah (See Art. "Aron " in
Pachad Yitzchak).*
3. The indirect evidence to the authenticity of the Penta
teuch consists ofthe following points :
(o) The laws and institutions on which critics agree that
first as the presumptive capital of Canaan (Genesis xlix. 10), then
as the capital of Canaan and the place of the national sanctuary
(Joshua xviii. 1 ; xix. 51) , and is that yet in the time of Phineas
(Judges xxi. 19). It is mentioned again as such in 1 Samuel ; then
in Psalms Ixxviii. 60, and in Jeremiah vii. 12-14, where its de
struction is noticed. It waa situated in Ephraim (Joshua x^vi. 6).
In the Talmud (Se6acAi)?i) the tradition is recorded that the sanc
tuary at Shiloh consisted of a stone structure, on the top of which
the tabernacle of Moses was pitched. The tabernacle itself was
not destroyed; it was tranf erred from Shiloh to Nob (?) and then
to Gibeon (1 Chronicles x-sd. 37-42) and finally by Solomon to Jeru
salem (2 Chronicles v. 5 ; 2 Kings viii. 4). Those critics who must
prove the non-existence of any Thorah at the start of Israel
in Canaan, make it easy for themselves by simply denying all
this documentary testimony concerning Shiloh and the Mosaic
tabernacle. * Most objectionable in this connection ia the assumption of some
radical critics, that the "Ark" was the god or idol worshiped by

Pronaos to Holy Writ. 163
they were adopted into the Pentateuch from the Egyptians,
as is also the case with the Egyptian words and names in
the Book, and the fact that its author and the people to
whom he spoke knew more of Egypt than of Canaan. These
points being sufficiently discussed, require no further sup
port ; it is for the negative side to show how this could have
been the case if the book had been written after the time of
Moses. In connection therewith it must be borne in mind
that there is no trace in the Pentateuch of Zoroasterism,
which we know also from Isaiah (xlv. 6, 7) that it existed
in his time ; no knowledge of the city of Babylon, no more
than that one of the four provinces over which Nimrod
reigned in the land of Shinear was called Babel (Genesis x.
10 and xi. 2)* no knowledge of a land called Assyria or a
capital called Nineveh, Ashshur is yet the name of a man
and Resen is the " Great City " (Genesis x. 11, 12), not even
in the time of Abraham (ibid, xiv.), and the Ashshur in the
poem of Balaam (Numbers xxiv.) seems yet to be taken as
the name of a man and not of a country. The Pentateuch
betrays no knowledge of any country except Egypt and
the ancient Hebrews, to which others add that the stones kept
therein were those gods or idols, in support of which the Scriptural
texts offer no more argument thau reason and experience offer in
support of the assumption that human beings at any time wor
shiped stock, stone, or any other object of nature, box, idol, image,
or any other work of art, otherwise than as presentations of ideas
or conceptions of divinity preceding the objects of nature or the
works of art adopted to repreaent those previous ideas or concep
tions. Only when the original ideas were forgotten, thoughtless
multitudes continued to worship those objects. It is an outrage on
human nature to reverse the order and entirely contrary to experi
ence. The ark and the tablets, if they were ever worshiped in Is
rael, must necessarily first have represented ideas of divinity,
which could but be the inscriptions on tttose stones and the charac
ter of that ark as testimony of the covenant. Those radical critics,
however, admit the existence of the ark and tablets at all times
after Moses ; hence their assumption does not invalidate our argu
ment in this connection.
* Also in Joshua -ni. 21 we find the Adereth Shinear.

164 The Authenticity of the Pentateuch.
Arabia. It has not even the city of Tyre, and besides
Damascus and Haran in Mesopotamia, none in Syria. In
the East it knows only of Ur of the Chaldeans.
(6) There are in the Pentateuch a number of laws and
narrations which could have been written only during the
sojourn of Israel in the wilderness prior to taking possession
of the land of Canaan ; as the laws concerning the Year of
Jubilee and the Year of Release (Leviticus xxv.). In no
land and among no people in possession of the soil such
laws of possession could be ordained with any prospect of
success. They could be prospective only and ordained be
fore the Israelites possessed the land of Canaan, as condi
tions sine qua non under which God gives them possession
of the land (Leviticus xxvi. 83-35, 43). It is evident that
the law of possession, as ordained in Moses, existed among
the Israelites at all times ( Ruth i. 9 to ii. 10 ; Jeremiah
xxxii. 1-12 ; xxxiv. 1-27 ; Ezekiel xlvi. 17), so that not even
wicked Ahab dared to violate it (2 Kings xxi.) ; and when
the exiles returned from Babylon, the family groups were
carefully noticed to return each to its own. It is not cer
tain that the Year of Jubilee was enforced at any time ; so
much the more it must have been a prospective legislation,
which, like many others ofthe same kind, were never reduced
to practice. If it had been enacted at any time in Canaan
it must have left a trace of its origin.*
(c) Among other chapters of Leviticus and Numbers
*Jeremiah xxxiv. gives us to understand that he refers to the
Thorah. He uses the terms 'tysn and nm for free and freedom,
exactly like Moses in Exodus and Leviticus, which none after him
had used except Jeremiah, and connects them with the same verbs
as Moaea did 'tysn rhu^ "im Hlpb, In verse 14 he begins with the
worda of Moses in Deuteronomy (xv. 1), and continues with the
Mosaic words in (Exodus xxi. 27), and like Moses he places the
verb 1313' yimmocher in the passive voice, showing that he knowa
and refers to all the lawa of Moaea on this subject, and refers only
to peraons that had been sold as a punishment for crimes com
mitted, as Exodus xxii. 2, to whom alone Exodus xxi. 2 refers. No
other bondsman went out free with the seventh year of hia servi
tude unlesa such was hia special compact ,

Pronaos to Holy Writ. 165
which refer especially to the sojourn in the wilder
ness, Leviticus xvii. contains the plainest evidence of
having been written there, and even in the beginning of
that period, soon after the tabernacle had been erected,
which applies also to chapters xviii.-xx., wherein the pecu
liarity of addressing the commandments to tJ^'X CJ^'K
or CJ"K recurs frequently.* These are special laws ex
pressed in concrete cases, without abstraction of gen
eral laws, as in Exodus xxi. and xxii., which is cer
tainly the form of primitive legislation. Besides, this chap
ter closes thus : "And every person that eateth that which
hath died of itself, or that which was torn by beasts, be this
one born in your own country, or a stranger, shall both
wash his clothes, and bathe himself in water, and be
unclean until the evening, when he shall be clean. But
if he wash (them) not, nor bathe his fiesh, then shall
he bear his iniquity." This was certainly written prior to
Leviticus xi., where the eating, touching or carrying any
unclean carcass is prohibited with much more emphasis
than prescribing for the transgressor no other punishment
or means of atonement than washing his body and gar
ments, so that the sin is not in eating the forbidden food, but
in not washing if one ate it. This passage can only be a con
tinuation of Exodus xxii. 80, which it supplements. The
whole of this chapter refers to matters in the wilderness and
at that special time. There is no reason imaginable why it
should have been written at any other time. This is also
e'vident from Deuteronomy xii. 15, 16,20-28. It prohibits
the killing of sheep, goats or cattle otherwise than at the
altar, where the blood is to be sprinkled and part of the fat
to be burned, for which the reason is given in verse 7, "that
they make no sacrifices to the Se'irim," the demons of the
wilderness, besides which there was also an economical
reason not stated in the text, all referring to the sojourn in
the wilderness. Then in verse 18 the exception to this rule
is stated in regard to game, which may be freely used for
*Al30 in Numbera v. 6 to vi. 31 and ix. 9-18.

166 The Authenticity op the Pentateuch.
food, but the blood must be covered with dust or ashes.
This again, was only for the wilderness, a sanitary measure,
and is not repeated in Deuteronomy xii. 16, 24, because it
referred to the wilderness only. No motive is imaginable
that could have induced any author, after or before Moses,
to write this chapter xvii. of Leviticus. The same is the
case with the story of the golden calf, made in the wil
derness, in which Aaron is placed in so unfavorable a light
(Deut. ix. 20), to which Leviticus xvii. evidently refers. It
was certainly not written when the descendants of Aaron
were the highest aristocracy of the nation, as was always
the case, at least from and after the time of King Solomon.
The same seems to be the case with all Pentateuchal pas
sages referring to the conquest of Canaan and the subjuga
tion or even extermination of the aborigines, when they had
ceased to exist, and none disputed the right and claim of
the Israelites to their land;* on the contrary, those pas
sages sound so harshly and so contrary to the Mosaic prin
ciple of humanism that no author of a later date would
have written them, and if one had done so, no compiler
would have inserted them in the Thorah.
There are also a number, especially of penal laws, in the
Pentateuch which, if tested by the general principles and
standard of Pentateuchal ethics, could have been intended
for Israel's sojourn in the wilderness only. To this class
might be taken the thirty-six cases in the Thorah, the com
mission (in two cases omission) of which to be punished
¦with Karath, " cut off'" (Mishna Kerithuth I.), the transgressor
*The passage in Ezra ix. 1 does not say that those nationalities
existed in his time ; it only tells that in taking foreign women for
wives, they did Dn^naVnD "like their abominations" which their
ancestors did in marrying the daughters of those nations. The
Qvh in verse 2, refers to miDK 'DV in verse one. Their prac
tice now, it says, was as abominable as it was in former days,
when Hebrews took in marriage the daughters of other nations,
referring to historical data, as is evident according to the Talmud
in regard to Ammonites and Moabites and according to the Law as
regards the Egyptians, mentioned in Ezra.

Pronaos to Holy Writ. 167
to be cut off, and it is said nowhere from what he is to be cut
off. The rabbinical expounders, therefore, were in doubt as
to what to make of this kind of punishment, and some made
of it a divine punishment executed by the Almighty in time
or eternity.* This esoteric conception of the term Karath is
not its primary meaning. It could but be intended to convey
the idea to cut off from the tribe or from the main body.
This was a severe punishment in the wilderness only, and
was inflicted on transgressors among many other tribes
similarly located. The same seems to be the case with the
punishment of death for the Sabbath-breaker (Exodus xxxi.
13-17 ; Numbers xv. 32-36) and all penalties of death in
Leviticus'xx., all of which are justifiable from the ethical
standpoint of Moses, as temporary measures in the wilder
ness only, where such heroic and rigorous laws were neces
sary, to break down the pagan practices, to maintain moral
purity among the hundred thousands of men and women
encamped in close approximation in the heart of a wide
waste, and to introduce effectually the laws, then new, like
the Sabbath, the sexual relations and the anti-pagan prac
tices. As measures in the wilderness, they are harsh and
rigorous, but justifiable by prevailing circumstances; as
laws enacted at any time in the land of Israel, they are
unjustifiable, almost unthinkable in connection with the
Mosaic standard of ethics. These must be legislations from
and for the wilderness, and are, therefore, not repeated in
Deuteronomy, nor by prophets, psalmists or chronographers.
(d) The body of doctrine, the institutions connected
therewith and the conception of righteousness as advanced
in the Pentateuch re-echo from all parts of the Bible from
first chapter of Josuha to the last of Chronicles. It is not
only the same Jehovah-Elohim, but also the same Creator,
Preserver and Governor of the world, the same sole Sover
eign of heaven and earth, and in his relations to man the same
Holy God of mercy, benevolence, long suffering and of abso-

*See Siphri to Numbers xv. 30, 31, and Talmud Sanhedrin 99 and
Targum Yerushalmi.

168 The Authenticity of the Pentateuch.
lute grace and truth, who preserves and extends the good and
the true to the thousandth generation and permits evil to
exist only to the fourth, and forgives iniquity, sin and trans
gression. So God is revealed from the summit of Sinai, so
Moses defines and proclaims Jehovah (Exodus xx. 5 ; xxxiv.
6-7 ; Numbers xiv. 17-20 ; Deuter. x. 17 ; iv. 35, 39 ; vu. 9 ;
xxxii.3,4). So did David praise him in Psalms ciii. andmany
other psalms ; so God's name and glory resounds and re
echoes in the speeches of all prophets, the songs and hymns
of all psalmists and the narrators of every episode of
Israel's history. And yet none of those inspired men main
tains that God revealed himself to him in this full majesty
of his glory ; none added any new idea to this sublime
cognition of the Most High, and none was able up to this
day to add to it. The same is the cas^ with the lofty con
ception of human nature which Moses proclaims (Gene
sis i.) and David sings in inspired lays (Psalms viii.) ; the
threefold covenant, viz., with man (Genesis ix. 8-17), with
Abraham (ibid, xvii.) and with Israel (Exodus xix. and
xxiv.), which re-echoes so from all books of the Bible that
the term Berith, " covenant," recurs no less than two hundred
and fifty times, and none maintains that he advanced this
doctrine, or added anything to it. The same is the case with
the institutions connected with it, viz., circumcision. Sab
bath, New Moon, the three high feasts, the duty of right
eousness, holiness and worship. All this we find present in
the mind of every author that contributed to the collection
called Holy Writ, without any claim to originality in all
these matters, and these taken together make the essentiality
of Israel's religion ; hence the outspoken confession that the
Thorah of Moses preceded all other books and parts of books.
(e) The main historical data narrated in the Pentateuch
also recur in the scriptural records. There is none which
alludes not to the fact that the Hebrews were the descend
ants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Also that Jacob went tp
Aram, served Laban for his daughter, and was then called
Israel, is mentioned by the prophet Hosea (xii.). The fact
of Israel's sojourn in Egypt, the exodus and remaining forty

Pronaos to Holy Writ. 169
years in the wilderness re-echoes from most all books, as
also the story of Baal Peor (Numbers xxv.), and of Balak
and Balaam (ibid. xxiiL and xxiv.), especially from Hosea
(xi. 1 ; xn. 10; xiii. 4), Amos (u. 10)* and Micah (v. 1-5),
and mentions especially Moses, Aaron and Miriam. The
occurrences in the wilderness toward the end of Moses' Ufe
are re-told by Yiphthach in Judges xi. 12-28. The fact that
Aaron was appointed a Nabi in Egypt, and afterward the
Cohen, is referred to in 1 Samuel ii. 27, 28 by the Man of Elo
him. 1 Samuel xii. it is this prophet who repeats the story
of Jacob going to Egypt and of Moses and Aaron leading
them out of that country. 1 Kings ii., the Thorah of Moses
as a written book containing ordinances, commandments
and testimonies, as also in Psalms xix., are reported, so that
as far as facts are concerned we need go no further, although
we might refer to many more passages, as for instance, the
Asaph chapters (Psalms Ixxviii., Ixxx., Ixxxi.), and espe
cially Psalms cxxxvi. This suffices to establish the fact
advanced at the head of this paragraph.
4. There are a number of arguments e silentio in support
of the antiquity and authenticity of the Pentateuch which
in connection with the foregoing are of considerable weight.
Mark the following :
(a) About eleven hundred and fifty Hebrew roots, and no
less new formations of words from existing roots occur in
Prophets and Hagiography, which are not found in the
Pentateuch. Take away the Aramaic portions in Daniel
and Ezra, and the Pentateuch will be found to contain much
more than one-fourth of the Hebrew of the whole Bible.
This marks the progress of the Hebrew language after the
five books of Moses had been written, most visible in the
books of Isaiah, Micah, Psalms, Proverbs and Job, and
points directly to the antiquity of the Pentateuch.
(6) The failure of all critics not only to fix with any
degree of certainty the time when the Pentateuch, or any
*Amo8 also knows the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, and tells it
with the same unusual verb "^ari'l as Moses did. See Amos iv. 2.

170 The Authenticity of the Pentateuch.
part thereof, was' written — simply because the history of the
Hebrew language is unknown to them — but also to discover
any anthropological, geographical or topographical error, as
far as Egypt, Arabia and Palestine are concerned, in the
whole Pentateuch. This, as well as the exact location of
places and the life-like descriptions of persons and events
points undoubtedly to an author cotemporary with the
events and perfectly at home in those localities. For in
stances of this kind we may point especially to the ad
dresses and songs of Moses in Deuteronomy and Exodus
XV., and the prayer of Moses (Psalms xc. and xci.). It is
not merely the antique form of the poetry and the concrete
terms, it is the clearness and exactness of the contents
which exclude any idea of a later author, especially in the
above psalms, in which the last days of Moses in the wilder
ness, with all the horrors of the wilderness, the death of a
whole generation before his mind, with a small band of sur
vivors approaching their end, are so vividly described.
(c) The entire disregard in the Pentateuch to the Later
Prophets is characteristic. No notice is taken of the un
favorable sentiments of prophets and psalmists to the sacri
ficial cults in general, to the Bamoth, the altars on the heights
in particular, and to all the innovations proposed by the
prophet Ezekiel. This could not be the case, if the Thorah
had been written late in the prophetical millenium. Nor
could those passages and penal laws pointed out above have
been accepted in the law— in spirit so contrary to the teach
ings of the prophets and psalmists — if it had been revised
and re-edited at a later date. Not even the musical reforms
pressed so emphatically by those who returned from Baby
lon, as is evident from Chronicles and Ezra, were given a
support in the law.
(d) The absence of any fixed doctrinal formula of im
mortality of the soul or resurrection of the body with any
kind of future reward and punishment is proof positive
almost of the antiquity of the Pentateuch. The indefi
nite ideas of eschatological matters correspond only with
ancient Egypt, by no means with the Zabaism or Zoroas-

Pronaos to Holy Writ. 171
terism of the East, not even with the older prophets and
psalmists in Israel whose ideas of an immortal soul are
much clearer and definite, as is evident from 1 Kings xvii.
17-24 ; 2 Kings iv. 20-37 ; Psalms viii. xvi. and xlix. ; Isaiah
xxvi. 19 further illustrated in Ezekiel xxxvii. Had the Pen
tateuch been written or rewritten at a later date none can
doubt that a fixed formula of this doctrine would be in it.
5. Last, although uo less important, the direct testimony
to the antiquity of the Pentateuch from Chronicles, Ezra
and Malachi must be considered. The main portion of
Chronicles, we have seen in the previous chapter, was
written before the advent of Ezra, nearer to the Babylonian
captivity than any other book besides the three last
prophets. There can be no doubt that the chronist had
before him the written Thorah of Moses, which, he states,
existed in the time of King David (1 Chron xvi. 9) at the
first occasion he had to refer to it. He refers again and
again to it in the time of David (ibid. xxii. 12; ixix. 19),
of Solomon (2 Chron. viii. 13), of Rehabeam (xii. 1), of Asa
(xiv. 3), of Jehoshaphat, who appointed teachers to
visit the cities of Judah with " the book of the Thorah of
Jehovah," and they did teach it publicly (xvii. 7-9). He
reports then again the Thorah in the time of King Hezekiah
(xxx. 16). When he reports that "the book ofthe Thorah"
was found in the sanctuary (xxxiv. 14, 15), which he further
on calls "the book ofthe Covenant" (verse 30), he certainly
could not intend to say that a new book, one unknown
before, was discovered. No author will thus contradict his
own statements. There is no cause to suspect the chronist
of false reports. Still, however this may be, he proves to a
certainty that the Pentateuch as it is existed in his time,
was known as the Thorah of Jehovah, the book of Moses,
and was generally believed to have existed in the same
form at least up to the time of King David. Later on the
prophet Malachi closes his prophecy with the same solemn
testimony : " Remember the Thorah of Moses, my servant,
which I commanded him at Horeb upon all Israel ordi
nances and statutes."' There comes to all this the solemn

172 The Authenticity of the Pentateuch.
testimony of Ezra, Nehemiah, the elders, priests and Levites,
of afl the people assembled in holy convocation at Jeru
salem, from the first to the twenty-fourth day of the
seventh month, when the Thorah was read and expounded
to them, and all of them acknowledged it as the genuine
Thorah of Jehovah Elohim (Nehemiah ix. 3) given by
Moses on Mount Sinai (verses 13 and 14 and x. 30), con
firmed it with two solemn affirmations, by the oath, and
signing their names to the document to convey all this to
posterity ; all of which is preserved in the viii. ix. and x.
chapters of Nehemiah. All speculations, however inge
nious and plausible to contradict this fact, are worthless.
In the time of Ezra, Nehemiah, Malachi and the Chronist
the Pentateuch was generally known and firmly believed
to be the Thorah of Jehovah, the Thorah of Moses,
the Thorah revealed on Mount Sinai. The groundless
hypothesis, that Ezra ¦wrote, amended or interpolated the
Thorah, is a forlorn hope and can not be sustained by any
known fact. His cotemporaries solemnly _swore that it is
the Thorah of Moses and not of Ezra. The Samaritans,
who did not accept any of the Ezra and Nehemiah re
forms, not even the other books of Scriptures, accepted the
Thorah in the ancient writing. In the post -biblical litera
ture prior to the Talmud, Ezra is not mentioned any more,
not even in the forty-ninth chapter of Ben Sira's book,
where the prophets Zerubabel, Joshua and Nehemiah are
glorified. Josephus and Philo know nothing of Ezra as
author or lawgiver.* All this would be impossible if Ezra
had written the Thorah or even any part thereof. Therefore
we know from all foregoing arguments of this chapter, that
there always was a Thorah ; a written Thorah, a Thorah of
*AH anybody knows of or about Ezra must be from that book or
the traditions recorded in the Talmud, and these two only sources
never intimate that he, in regard to the Thorah, was any more
than a learned scribe and expounder, who in a very few instances
filled up a defective passage, which he marked by points above the
letters. (See Numbers Rabba 37, 24 to vb bv Ipi ncb and Tikkun
Sopherim, of which we speak in the next chapter.

Pronaos to Holy Writ. 173
Jehovah, a Thorah of Moses, prior to all other bibUcal
books, that the contents of that Thorah were in doctrines
and narratives in the main at least identical with the one
before us ; but we know not yet their perfect identity, nor
do we know yet when and by whom it was cast in the form
as it is before us. We must continue the investigation.
6. The three middle books of the Pentateuch were
certainly not edited in the time of Kings in Israel or
Judah. They are strenuously democratic-theocratic in all
their provisions and narrations. No room is left to a
king, no prerogative is given to any, no sphere for the
exercise of the royal authority is intimated. This demo
cratic spirit is so clearly expressed — and this is to be
especially remembered — that God is never called "King"
in all the Pentateuch, nowhere before Samuel (xii. 12). Such
a code could not have been written or edited in any country
governed by a king. That these three books were not writ
ten after that time is evident from the foregoing arguments
in this chapter. Some of the negative critics admit this,
when they maintain that the book of the Thorah found in
the temple by Hilkiah, the high priest, and brought to King
Joshiah (2 Kings xxiii. ; 2 Chronicles xxxiv.) was Deuter
onomy, which the prophet Jeremiah forged, and in con
spiracy with the priest, imposed on the king as the work of
Moses. Before arguing this point it must be taken into
consideration that if this is so then the three middle books
of the Pentateuch must be much older than Deuteronomy.
There could be no reason to forge that book nine centuries
after the death of Moses upon his name ; had he not been
known as the redeemer, lawgiver and founder of the institu
tions extant in the time of Jeremiah. It can not be main
tained that the name also was an invention, because either it
was used to give authority to the book, then the name must
have been identified with this authority, or the invention
was foolish, as historical names of high authority like Samuel,
David, Solomon, Elijah, Isaiah, must have been well known
then, and any one of them would have conferred a higher
authority upon the pseudonymous book than the unknown

174 The Authenticity of the Pentateuch.
and foreign Moses. If Moses was known as the redeemer,
lawgiver and founder of the institutions, it could not have
been by tradition nine centuries post fedun, there must have
existed documents to this effect. These documents — the
e^vidence is too overwhelming — must have been besides the
three middle books of the Thorah, also Genesis, or such other
documents in which the subject matter of Deuteronomy was
contained, to which it literally refers in almost every chap
ter, in narration, doctrine and law.* However, there exists
no passage and no intimation in any book of the Bible or else
where to justify the ungenerous and unethical hypothesis, that
Jeremiah or any other prophet or priest in Israel committed
literary forgery, pious fraud or impious dissimulation ; or to
assume that Deuteronomy was the book found in the days of
King Joshiah. The books of Kings and Chronicles were writ
ten undoubtedly by authors of ability, who would not con
tradict themselves in matters of facts in the same book. And
yet in 2 Kings xiv. and 2 Chronicles xxv. — besides many
other passages — the existence and authority of Deuteronomy
is expressly acknowledged by quoting from it literally verse
6 in Kings and verse 4 in Chronicles. Still further on, in
Kings xvii. and Chronicles xxx. and xxxi., in the time of
King Hezekiah, the existence and authority of the whole
*As most striking reference of this kind compare Deuteronomy
i. 9-18 to Exodus xviii. 26; Moses being omitted in the Deuteron
omy passage which closes, "And I commanded you then all the
words which ye shall do." Compare Deuteronomy i. to iii. with
the corresponding passages in Numbers ; also iv. 1-3 to Numbers
xxv. 1-9 ; ibid. iv. 9-13 to Exodus xix. ; ibid, three times " ^iv IB'tU
in Deuteronomy v., and after verse 19 compare to Exodus xx. 15-19 ;
ibid. Deuteronomy xiv. and Leviticus xi. ; Deuteronomy xxviii. to
Leviticus xxvi., and so on throughout the book with numerous
references to Genesis. The difference of expressions in the Deca
logue and some laws prove that Moses was the author of Deuter
onomy, as none else would have attempted these changes and
emendations. The defectiveness of some laws, as in Deuteronomy
xxiii. 1-3 points most distinctly to laws of prior existence, in this
case Leviticus xviii. as the emendations to other laws again demon
strate the authorship of Moses.

Pronaos to Holy Writ. 175
Thorah is expressly acknowledged. Anyway, no fair critic
can presume that two pages beyond the author or com
piler contradicts all that and meant to say there that Deuter
onomy or any part of the Pentateuch, then unknown, was
produced or found in the temple. Besides Kings and
Chronicles inform us expressly that nnilll IfiD the book
of the Thorah, viz., the main book of the Thorah, was found
in the temple, which in both sources is called then IflD
n'lDn " The Book of the Covenant," which we know from
Exodus xxiv. 4-7 was the principal book written by Moses.
There exists not the least cause to maintain that it was any
other book except an ancient manuscript supposed, perhaps,
to be the original book written by Moses. In hearing the
contents of the book the king rent his garments, and sent
to the prophetess Huldah — not to Jeremiah, who was not
known yet as a prophet and was a very young man — to in
quire of the Lord as to what evil would come over the land,
" because our fathers hearkened not to the words of this book
to do like all that is written concerning us." This is repeated
in clearer language in 2 Chronicles. Hence it was not a new
book or one not known or not observed at that time, it is
only the fathers, meaning Menasseh and Amon, who did not
do as prescribed in the said book. The cause of the terror
which the book struck was simply that the Book of the
Covenant closed with Leviticus xxv. and xxvi., and the lat
ter chapter contains the prophecies of Moses concerning all
the evils to befall the people breaking the covenant and de
serting their God and his law. To this the message of the
prophetess Huldah refers, which is also stated extensively
in the name of many prophets in 2 Kings xxi. 10-17, and is
repeated in Jeremiah in most all of his messages. All this,
no doubt, was known in the days of King Joshiah, but it
was not believed to be the genuine prophecy of Moses. The
ancient manuscript found in the temple proved to them that
such was the prophecy of Moses, and this struck terror into
the hearts and started Jeremiah on his prophetical mission
of, " the end approaches," taken from Amos' ppH N3 (viii.

176 The Authenticity of the Pentateuch.
2), announced to Israel, " I will hasten my word to per
form it."*
7. The existence and authority of the Thorah are trace
able up to the time of Samuel in the historical books, the old
est prophets. Proverbs and Psalms. In regard to the older
prophets attention is called to the foUo^wing special points :
(a) The main events narrated in the Thorah are noticed
in these books. Such are the origin of the Hebrew people
and its religion from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (Micah vii.
20 ; Hosea xii. 4, 5 ; Amos vii. 16) ; the destruction of
Sodom and Gomorrah with the same exceptional term of
(IDfiiin llflni JlDflnO as in Genesis xix. (Amos iv. 11 ;
Isaiah i. 9, 10, also iii. 9 and xiii. 19); Israel's sojourn in
Egypt, the redemption by Moses, Aaron and Miriam and the
forty years in the wilderness (Amos ii. 10; iii. 1; v. 25,)
where also the prophets and Nazirites are noticed (Hosea
ii. 17 ; xi. 1 ; xii. 14 ; xiv. 5 ; Micah vi. 4 ) ; the story of
Balak and Bileam (Micah vi. 6) and the location where it
occurred; so also the story at Baal Peor (Hosea ix. 10).
(6) The imitations and quotations from the Pentateuch.
Such are Joel ii. 13 like Exodus xxxiv. 6 ; ii. 16 like Deuter
onomy viii. 10 ; ii. 17 ; and iv. 17 like Numbers xv. 41 '''> 'JK
CDDM'7N ; Amos iu. 14 like Exodus xxxu. 34 i~\pQ DV3 ;
iv. 6-11 is an abstract of Leviticus xxvi. the phrase ii7 OH
'''7 IJ^OLJ'n changed into the refrain nV OH'lti^ N'?!;
Hosea i. 7 '•?3 D'nj755'ini like Deuteronomy xxxii. 19 ; i. 9
is like Deuteronomy xxvi. 16-19 ; ii. 1 is like Genesis xiii.
16 and xxi. 17 ; v. 8 is like Numbers x. 1-10 with the identi
cal words of Ifiltr, m^^^n and l^^'im ; v. 10 is like Deut
eronomy xxvii. 87, with the identical 712^1 J'DD ; xii. 10 and
xiii. 4 are literally the first verse of the Decalogue. Isaiah
i. 2 is an imitation of Deuteronomy xxxii. 1. Besides all of
them repeated the words of Moses (Deuteronomy xxx. 8),
*The prophecy of Jeremiah that the Babylonian captivity would
last seventy years, was based upon the prophecy of Moses (Leviti
cus xxvi. 32-34). The number seventy must be understood as the
ordinary lifetime of a man.

Pronaos to Holy Writ. 177
']mi£:' na ']M'7K *^ ^ItJ'l (Joeliu.4; Amoslx. 14; Hosea
vi. 11.) This phrase passed into almost every book of the
Bible. Hosea (iv. 15) informs us that the people also in the
kingdom of Israel swore »^ *H by the Living God of Israel.
They speak of the " Covenant " by which Israel became a
kingdom of priests (Hosea iv. 6; viii. 1; Isaiah xxiv. 5) ; so
Micah speaks of the grace and truth, or the love and faithful
ness which God has sworn to our ancestors from ancient
days (-vii. 20). They speak of the sacrificial polity, the
altar, the priesthood, the sacrifices as ancient institutions,
not as a form of Pagan worship (Joel i. 13 ; ii. 17), and
Amos brings in connection with Chaggim " feasts," Atzeroth,
generally rendered " feast of conclusion," which word in this
signification occurs in the Pentateuch only.
They make mention of VpH) " Jllin " the Thorah of
Jehovah and his statutes " (Amos ii. 4) ; I'H'^K illin " the
Thorah of thy Elohim," and rmm jina " the Covenant
and the Thorah" (Hosea iv. 6 and viii. 1), IJTl'^K min
" the Thorah of our Elohim " (Isaiah i. 10) in parallel with
"" 1^1 " The Word of Jehovah," of which he, Uke Micah,
knows that the Thorah -will go forth from Zion and the word
of God from Jerusalem to all nations (ii. 3). He knows
that the Thorah is not the Theudah or prediction (viii. 20)
and that it consists of more than one book which stands in
connection with Chok or statute, and Berith or covenant
(xxiv. 5), and that his people refuse to obey the *•' JinD
"The Thorah of Jehovah" (xxx. 8). He speaks of Sepher
a book (xxix. 11, 12), and even of two kinds of Holy Writs,
the Luach Ithom and the Sepher Chuckoh, and tells us ex
pressly (xxxiv. 16), " Inquire ye from the Book of Jeho
vah" ; hence we must conclude that the Thorah was written
a Sepher Chuckoh, We know it was the Thorah which
stands in connection with Berith, the covenant, which, to
the best of our knowledge, was the Pentateuch only
8. It seems, therefore, probable that the three middle
books of the Pentateuch were recast in their present form

178 The Authenticity of the Pentateuch.
from the Mosaic documents, by editors from the period of
the Judges. In this period there are but two ages when
such an important work might have been accomplished ; (1)
from and after the conquest and occupation of Canaan by
Joshua to the time of Deborah and Barak, which we may
call the Phineas age; and (2) the time of Samuel and his
immediate disciples, the first Bene Hannebiim, In regard to
the Phineas age, we read in Joshua xxiv. 31 and Judges ii.
7, "And Israel served God all the days of. Joshua, and all
the elders that lived long after Joshua, who had known all
the (great) works of God, that he had done for Israel."
This age of piety and knowledge re-echoes yet in the De
borah song, and it appears from there (Judges v. 6) to have
reached into the time of Shamgar ben Anoth, the immedi
ate predecessor of Deborah. It was evidently a literary age
v.-hen laws were written (ibid, verses 9 and 14) " to ennoble
the people," and men were searching into the law to estab
lish justice (verse 10) and there were expert scribes in Zeb
ulon (verse 14). It is probable that then, even by the
immediate disciples of Moses, like Phineas, Othniel ben
Kenaz and their cotemporaries, the Mosaic material was
recast for the benefit of priests and people into the more
practical form of Exodus and Leviticus, as these two books
contain nothing which points to a date after the Deborah
age, and after that came the retrogression into the rude
ages of Jephthah and Samson, arrested by Samuel and his
disciples. The prophet Samuel, according to Psalms xcix.
6, 7 ranks with Moses and Aaron, among those who pro
claimed God's name, who cried to God and he responded to
them : " In a pillar of cloud would he speak to them ; they
guarded his testimonies and he gave them statutes." This
sounds very much like placing Samuel among the law
givers, so that the Talmud could maintain '7K10tI' "^IDJJ*
pilNI (ISJ'O IJJD " Samuel equipoises Moses and Aaron."
The next consideration is that Samuel was the author of
the book of Judges, taken from the " Pook of the Wars of
Jehovah," and after Judges opens a new method of histori
ography and a new epoch of Hebrew language and litera-

Pronaos to Holy Writ. 179
ture ; as if the old Mosaic and post-Mosaic records had been
closed, after the material for Pentateuch, Joshua and Judges
had been transcribed from them, new records were opened
and continued thereafter by the prophets and the Scribes
and Chancellors of the royal court. Besides all this, it
appears that Judges and the first part of Samuel are in
spirit closer to Numbers than to any other book, and several
passages in Numbers have their counterparts in Judges, as
for instance Judges i. 17 and Numbers x. 3-5, also Deuter
onomy iii. 14 ; Judges x. 3-5 ; Numbers xxx. 89-42 ; Judges
xi. 11, 12-28, and Numbers xxxi. ;, Judges xiii. 7 and Num
bers vi. 1-5, while none reach beyond the time of Samuel.
The last of the Balaam's poems (Numbers xxiv. 15-24)
bears the imprint of Samuel, and some maintain also his
name. There must be added to all this, that from and
after Samuel we have before us detailed history; if at
any time after Samuel such an important literary monu
ment as the Pentateuch had been erected, some notice of it
must have been left in chronographers, psalmists or proph
ets, which, however, is not the case. Thus we are again
obliged to admit that the recasting of the Mosaic documents
could not have taken place after the days of Samuel.
9. The question arises, do the documents before us com
pel us to admit that the Mosaic documents were edited after
the death of Moses? In this connection the following points
must be considered :
(a) There are anachronistic passages in the Pentateuch.
Exodus xvi. 35 and 86 closes the narrative of the manna
and the first falling of quail in the wilderness of Zin, thus :
" The children of Israel ate the manna forty years, till they
came to the inhabited land ; they ate the manna till they
came into the borders of the land of Canaan. An omer is
the tenth part of an ephah." This could have been written
only after they had come into the land, and had a diff'erent
measure of capacity ; hence after the death of Moses. Le-
•viticus xxi. is headed, " Say to the priests, sons of Aaron,"
contrary to aU similar passages, which open invariably,
"Speak (and not say) to Aaron and his sons." Then verse 10

180 The Authenticity of the Pentateuch.
occurs, " And the priest greater than his brothers." These
verses could have been written only after the death of Aaron,
as the latter had no brother priests, hence could not be
called the greatest of them. Numbers xiii. 24 is an explan
atory note, giving the reason why that place was called
Nahol Eshcol, called so by " the children of Israel " in after
times, not by the spies, but after the death of Moses. The
same is the case with Numbers xxii. 20 and 27-30 ; xxxiii.
Sir-i2, as quoted above. , The only anachronism in Deuteron
omy xvii. 14-20, the law concerning the king, which is in
dissonance with the whole Mosaic legislation, also may be
ascribed to Samuel, as the last chapter, in which the death
of Moses is narrated, is given to Joshua. We notice no
passages in Genesis that must necessarily have been written
after Moses. It has been stated before that all land west of
the Euphrates was called by the Eastern nations Arab, " the
West," and by the Egyptians Eber, the other side of the
Red Sea and the Isthmus, hence all that country was called
" Land of the Ebrim," or Hebrews. The supposed anachron
ism of plK2 fK ^JJ^JJDm " the Canaanite was then in the
land," is none with the author of Genesis, and would be
none even if Abraham was supposed to have said it, as it
means as well : "And the Canaanite had just then come into
the interior of the land," viz., when Abraham came, as its
actual home was at the western and southern borders of the
land (Genesis x. 19; Numbers xiii. 29). Genesis xxxvi. 31-
39 is not necessarily an anachronism. It begins : " These are
the kings which reigned in the land of Edom before a king
reigned (or a government was established) to the children
of Israel." Then eight kings, all foreigners, are named,
evidently successive conquerors, or governors, placed there
by the Pharaohs. All of them may have reigned over the
Horites and the children of Esau before the latter achieved
superiority and independence, and gave kings to the land.
From the emigration of Esau to Seir to the exodus of
Israel 300 years elapsed — too long a time almost for eight
successive kings. The ']'?0"'^'?0 with its pecuUar construe-

Pronaos to Holy Writ. 181
tion, preserved also in Chronicles, does not necessarily sig
nify any king ; it means also a government organized. In
this sense we find in Deuter. xxxiii. 5, Moses is called King
of Jeshurun, " he having gathered around himself the heads
of the people, uniting the tribes of Israel," i. e., establish the
government whose head he was. In the Samaritan Joshua,
Moses, Joshua and others are plainly called kings.
(6) There are. Exodus xxxiv. 29-33 and Numbers xii. 8,
two passages speaking of Moses in so laudatory a manner
that it seems not Moses had written them. No man of that
eminence will write of himself how his face was shining
and beaming so that Aaron and the people were afraid to
look at him ; or that he was the meekest of all men.
(g) There are in the Pentateuch definitions of names of
persons which are not deemed correct, and point to a later
hand. (d) There are numerous repetitions in the Pentateuch
which could not be the work of one writer, it is maintained.
This point, however, is not well taken. As regards the repe
tition of laws, the ancient expounders, as recorded in the
Talmud, established that the repetition of any law contains
an amendment, especially in Deuteronomy, which main
tains to have the object of riKfl iinilll DK 1X5 " ex
pounding this Thorah" (i. 5). For instance, Deut. xiv. be
gins with amending Leviticus xi., adding thereto that such
may be given to the resident alien or sold to the transient
foreigner, they being not bound to observe those dietary
laws. Then from verse 22 the law of tithe is repeated, to
add thereto that the part of the tithe which the. owner is
commanded to consume at " the place where the Lord thy
God will choose " may be sold at home and the money used
to that purpose. Then chapter xv., the law concerning the
year of release, in order to add thereto that debts must not
be collected during the Sabbath year ( the rabbis held aU debts
were canceled) and that the transient foreigner was not in
cluded in this law. Such is the case with every repetition
of law, except IIXD Q'Knrr CZ'OinD 'JB*. Where nar
rations are repeated, as the same having happened to two

182 The Authenticity of the Pentateuch.
different persons, it must be borne in mind that this is by
no means impossible. Besides, repetitions of this kind
occur only in Genesis, whose author may have had before
him double traditions or documents in those particular
cases. (e) The only book written in the first person is Deuter
onomy, the others are written in the third person, as though
another author had written the whole from older records
before him or from traditions.
(/¦) We find there but scanty outlines of Israel's
history in Goshen, and none from thirty-seven years'
sojourning in the wilderness, viz., from the second to the
fortieth year, a few episodes in Numbers excepted. And yet
we know from Hosea ix. 10 ; x. 1,2; xi. 1-4 ; xiii. 5, 6 ; Amos
V. 25, 26 ; Ezekiel xx. ; Psalms Ixxviii. ; Ixxxi. xcv., that we
possess but a small part of the history in the wilderness in
Exodus and Numbers. In regard to Goshen we learn from
1 Chronicles how little we know of its history ; as for
instance iv. 19-23; vi. 20-24; viii. 11-13. It seems even
from some of these notices that many of the Hebrews pos
sessed estates and towns in Canaan, while their people were
in Goshen. It seems, therefore, that the historical portion
of the three middle books is a mere abstract from older and
more extensive records.
(g) There is no chronological order in the first four
books (Hiiro iniKQI OipiO PX) as the Talmud admits,
nor a logical connection in the order of the sections of laws
(JllD'^OD pa'ni pN), except in Deuteronomy ; the fourth
book is fragmentary and contains pieces which belong
either to the preceding books or also to Deuteronomy.
Therefore we are bound to admit :
A. That the Thorah with all its principles, doctrines,
laws, institutions, political, social and ecclesiastical, and the
cotemporary history as laid down in the original documents
of Moses, was always known in Israel and was always canon
to the nation, notwithstanding despotic kings and princes
had sought to override the Law, and paganizing multitudes

Pronaos to Holy Writ. 188
that went astray after other gods and the immoral practices
undermining reason, freedom and justice.
B. Exodus and Leviticus were edited after the death of
Moses — in the Phineas age — from the original documents
and contain few of the editor's additions and many omis
sions (perhaps also exaggerations) in the historical portions.
C. Numbers was edited later on, from fragments omitted
by the former and parts originally belonging to Deuter
onomy. D. Genesis and Deuteronomy are the original works of
Moses, with some very few later additions in Deuteronomy.
E. Numbers bears the imprints of the prophet Samuel,
by whom and his school it must have been edited, it bears
no traces of any later date, to connect Leviticus with Deu
teronomy. The additions to Deuteronomy also do not
reach beyond the time of Samuel.
F. Exodus and Leviticus may have been edited any time
after the conquest — they contain nothing pointing to a later
date — and no -later than the time of the prophetess Deborah.
The question may arise, why do we insist upon this sys
tem, and not rather yield to the fragmentists, Jah-vists and
Elohists, with whom the Thorah is composed of a number
of fragments from various authors of unknown times? To
this we reply :
(a) Because we possess no documentary evidence what
ever of the origin or existence of any such fragments at any
time ; but we have such evidence of the origin and existence
of the Mosaic documents, in contradiction of which specu
lation is of no value.
(6) Because the whole Thorah is of one and the same
spirit in principle, doctrine, precept and law, which must
necessarily come from one author, and not possibly from a
number of authors.
(c) Had such fragments existed at any time, the biblical
records being so particular with registering of names, must
have taken notice of them, which is not the case, while the
Mosaic records are specifically mentioned.
(d) Because the entire fabric of speculation basing upon

184 The Authenticity of the Pentateuch.
the Jah^vistic and Elohistic criteria of authorship is eo ipso
false and worthless.
10. The theories advanced, that the Thorah was com
piled of a number of older books written by various authors
at different times, ¦with or without Mosaic portions, are based
upon the first hypothesis, that there are portions in Holy
Writ, in which God is called Jehovah and others in which
he is called Elohim. This it was assumed — certainly on no
holding ground — points to diff'erent authors. Then on the
strength of grammatical niceties and supposed repetitions
and contradictions in the different books, the division into
original fragments was pressed to an unreasonable number,
although it is evident that casual grammatical deviations
in such small portions of literature are no evidence for dif
ferent authors, as by a rigid application of the same method,
any book, ancient or modern, could be split into fragments
from different authors. The very fact that ¦with this method
the Pentateuch was split in twenty-five slices, each of a differ
ent author, proves the fallacy of that method, anyhow to any
critical reader of the original. This method, however, like
all others, to prove that the Thorah was not of Moses and
the historical books were re-edited and interpolated, started
originally from the Jahvistic-Elohistic hypothesis and in
support thereof; this being refuted, all those theories fall
with it. This hypothesis, however, is without foundation
for the following reasons :
(a) Every book of the Bible was written by a Jahvist,
none besides the second and a part of the third book of
Psalms is Elohistic (Psalms xlii.-lxxxiii.), that is, the Elo
him predominates in all of them. Here is the documentary
evidence that the diff'erent names of God do not point to .
different authors. The same David who is credited with the
purely Jahvistic psalms (especially Psalms viii. xviii.) is also
credited with the Elohistic psalms (Psalms li.-lxi. ahd Ixiii.
Ixxi ) ; the same sons of Korah at the heads of Elohistic
psalms (Psalms xlii.-xlix.) are also credited with the
Jahvistic (Psalms Ixxxiv., Ixxxv., Ixxx-vii. and Ixxxviii.).
Our theory, for which we have some Scriptural support, is

Pronaos to Holy Writ. 185
that the hymns of David were written for public worship
at the advanced age of the King, after the ark had been
brought to Zion, therefore they are Jahvistic, as he only in
his last words calls himself author ofthe Zemiroth Israel (2
Samuel xxiii.). His Elohistic psalms were considered pro
ductions of his earlier days, as all the headings show and
as the compiler of the second book confirms by calling them
Thephilloth (Psalms Ixxii. 20) and not Zemiroth, in them he
omitted the tetragrammaton. The Elohistic psalms of the
Sons of Korah and Asaph psalms, together with those of
David, were only used at theBamoth worship outside of Zion,
and the tetragrammaton is omitted in them, replaced by Elo
him. The few Elohistic pieces in Genesis have been accounted
for as old documents partly adopted and partly adapted by
the Jahvistic author. Elohim like El Shaddi are purely
Hebraic and monotheistic, marking distinctly the age of
transition from the worship of the natural forces to the
cognition of the absolute and infinite Deity, and the end of
that transition period with Abraham.
(6) The oldest poetical parts of Scriptures are mainly
Jahvistic with the term Elohim used alternately. These are
the songs of Moses, the poems of Balaam, the blessing of
Moses, the song of Deborah, the prayer of Hannah, Psalms
xviii. cxxxvi., and in all of the Prophets. This frequent
alternation, in each case of Elohim with the tetragrammaton
in the oldest poetical pieces, which could impossibly be cut
into fragments and given to a number of different authors —
if even the headings of psalms are taken to be of later origin
— off'er proof positive that the Jahvistic-Elohistic hopothesis
is a fallacy. This is so much more evident from such pieces
which were actually transcribed, like the eighteenth psalm
from 2 Samuel xxii., or Psalms cxv. from cxxxv., or cxliv.
from three older psalms, or even in Chronicles from Samuel
and Psalms, the names of God are never changed except
once in Psalms xviii., where Elohim is put instead of the
tetragrammaton ; hence the transcribing hypothesis is also
worthless. All other objections raised against the authen
ticity of the Pentateuch and the historical books, the David-

186 The Authenticity of the Pentateuch.
ian Psalms and the Solomonic Proverbs prove a failure and
can only be taken as the products of misunderstanding or
misinterpretation of Biblical passages, if it is admitted that
documentary evidence opposite speculations is conclusive,
which none can justly doubt. If we add thereto that Exodus
and Leviticus received their present form in the Phineas
time, when also Joshua was edited, and Numbers in the time
of Samuel, for which we have documentary intimations any
how, also the anachronistic objections fall away, and we are
entitled to the conclusion that the main laws of Moses, with
as much of history as was deemed necessary to understand
them correctly, was recast in the Exodus-Leviticus canon —
originally one book — as early as it was necessary for govern
ment, priests and people to have it, and this was at the very
beginning ofthe occupation of Canaan. When a new literary
period dawned in Israel with the Prophet Samuel, other
laws and portions of history which the former had not con
sidered, but were there in the ancient Mosaic records, were
compiled in the book of Numbers, which, with the former,
exhausted the laws of Moses, although not also the history,
which was not considered of equal importance. Therefore,
we have no history of Goshen and none of the wilderness
fragments excepted from the second to the fortieth year.
This gives us the following dates :
Genesis, Deuteronomy (with some Samuel additions) and
the entire material of the three middle books of the Penta
teuch date from the first half of the fifteenth century B. C,
Exodus, Leviticus and Joshua, fourteenth century B. C,
Numbers, also Judges and part of Samuel, eleventh century
B. C.
With this argument established, those advanced against
the authenticity of the historical books have become worth
less. For they were originally construed in support of 'the
hypothesis, that no Thorah existed, and its production was
a fraud and forgery ; in support thereof another and still
more flagrant fraud and forgery was perpetrated, viz. : the
historical records were falsified to make it appear that the
Thorah existed from the days of Moses. That hypothesis

Pronaos to Holy Writ. 187
being overthrown, the whole series of arguments in its sup
port is useless and worthLess, and truth is re-enthroned.
11. Ezra, the Scribe, a scion of the last high priest in the
Temple of Solomon, was born in Babylonia toward the
close of the reign of the Medo-Persian King, Darius Hystas
pis (521^85 B. C). All that is known ofthe life and work
of Ezra is taken from the books of Ezra and Nehemiah and
the traditions preserved in Talmud and Midrash, Outside
thereof that great Scribe is not mentioned, not even in the
Mishnah; where (Aboth I. 1) his name is most naturally
expected, it is omitted, and the chain of tradition is stated
thus : " Moses received the Thorah from Sinah, deUvered it
to Joshua, Joshua to the Elders, the Elders to the Prophets
and the Prophets to the Men of the Great Synod ;" although
elsewhere he is counted a bearer of traditions and a disciple
of Baruch ben Neriah, who was the scribe of the prophet
Jeremiah. The theory advanced by modern critics, that Ezra
was the author or the editor or compiler of the Thorah,
and the historical books of Former Prophets, is based upon
no kind of documentary evidence ; it is the product of spec
ulation, contrary to all written accounts of the great scribe,
who, according to one statement in the Talmud, was identi
cal with the prophet Malachi (Meguillah 15). This, how
ever, was not generally accepted, as he is always called the
scribe, the Hasid and Anav (pious and meek) like Moses,
the twenty-second bearer of the traditions after Moses, but
he is never called a prophet. He is supposed ( Sanhedrin.
21) to have been competent that the Thorah had been given
through him, if Moses had not preceded him. The Talmud
(Succah 20) contains also this statement: "At first when
the Thorah had been forgotten in Israel Ezra came up (from
Babylon) and established it;" but the same thing is said
of Hillel (100 B. C.) on the same page of the Talmud, «'hich
proves that Thorah in this connection refers to the oral law
only, and not to the written Law of Moses.
12. What Ezra actually did is reported in the books of
Ezra and Nehemiah, and in the ancient Rabbinical liter
ature, thus :

188 The Authenticity of the Pentateuch.
(a) Ezra viii., the oldest chronist, reports that Ezra was
an " expert Scribe in the Thorah of Moses," (verse 6) and
"had put his heart into the inquiry in the Thorah of
Jehovah, and to do and to teach in Israel ordinance and
judgment," was appointed by King Artaxerxes, Supreme
Judge and Teacher of the " Law of the God of Heaven "
(verses 12 and 21), also to appoint judges of all grades for
all people west ofthe Euphrates (verse 25), "that they may
judge in all Syria and Palestine " (1 Esdras viii. 23). He
was given almost absolute power to carry into eff'ect
the provisions ofthe king's decree (verse 26), and he made
use of his authority (Ezra x. 7, 8). He was also appointed
carrier of the treasures sent to the Temple of Jerusalem and
head of the colony led to Palestine. The term of Sopher,
rendered " Scribe," we know from the use of this term ever
after Ezra, signifies "a writer" or copyist (and not an
author), and an "expounder" of any existing book or
books, or existing traditions. The terms of the edict in
verse 25 (also 21), that Ezra's powers should extend "to
all people" west of the Euphrates, or according to the
apocryphal Esra all " Syria and Palestine," where the non-
Israelites were certainly predominant in numbers, proves
that it was not purely religious or ritual laws which Ezra
was to teach and enforce, all of which existed in Palestine
before the advent of Ezra; it was the political and social
law, tOfiJi'OI pin (verse 10), which was to be introduced and
enforced. This had been suspended, of course, during the
Babylonian captivity and was not restored to the Zeru
babel colony in Palestine and at no other time prior to the
seventh year of King Artaxerxes ; he decreed the con
version of the Medo-Persian colony in Palestine into a
state organization with its own law and jurisdiction. This
was accomplished by Ezra and Nehemiah. This is evident
also from the fact that Ezra never interfered with any
purely religious institution, and with Nehemiah never
went beyond the sphere of political and social law. This
appears from Nehemiah ix. 36, 37 and x. 80, 40.
In Jerusalem the books inform us, that Ezra, on com-

Pronaos to Holy Writ. 189
plaint by the princes, convened a general meeting of all
people of Judah and Benjamin together with the priests
and Levites, in order to adopt measures against the evil
of misalliance and polygamy. The general meeting de
manded the construction of a representative body (Ezra x.
12, 15). This, it is justly supposed, was the origin of that
representative body, called in the Talmud " the Men of the
Great Synod," of which W3 treat further on. Then again
Ezra appears before the assembled people, by order of
Nehemiah, with " the book of the Thorah of Moses, which
Jehovah commanded Israel" (Nehemiah viii.). On that
memorable first day of the seventh month Ezra read the
Thorah up to noon time of that day before the assembled
people, and the Levites expounded, or perhaps also trans
lated it to those from foreign countries. These readings
were then continued especially during the days of the
feast of tabernacles (verses 13 and 18). On the twenty-
fourth day of the seventh month, the Thorah was pro
claimed as the law of the land, the assembled people
swore the oath of allegiance, the princes signed the docu
ment to this eff'ect, and additional laws were promulgated
(ibid. ix. and x.). This and nothing more is narrated of
the work of Ezra in the two books.
(6) In the two Talmuds and the Midrash Ezra is reported
as the author of new rules (mjpn) mostly referring to the
administration of political and social laws ; some referring
to writing and reading of the Thorah ; and the interdiction
of intermarriage ¦with the Nethinim (Ezra viii. 20) assistants
of the Levites in the temple service, appointed to it by King
David, supposed to be descendants of the Gibeonites that
came to Joshua to which belonged also the " Sons of the
Servants of Solomon." The supposition that Ezra was ths
author of any Thargum, Syriac or Aramaic version of the
Thorah, is erroneous. In the Talmud (Nedarim 37 and
Meguillah 3), on which this supposition is based, it is stated
in advance, that Onkelos was the author of the Targum to the
Thorah, and Jonathan ben Uziel wrote the Targum of
Prophets. The Targumist of Hagiography, Rabbi Joseph

190 The Authenticity of the Pentateuch.
the Blind, is mentioned later on. Against this statement of
fact, an exposition of Abba Areka on Nehemiah viii. 8, is
cited, where the word Clfl2 is understood to signify
"translation" or Targum. This verse, however, refers not
to Ezra at all, it refers to the Levites, who expounded the
Thorah to the people, some of them may have spoken Ara
maic to the foreigners in that assembly, and this, as is
stated there in the Talmud, was forgotten. In the same
passage it is stated also that the Levites promulgated then
among the people the Massorah, the division of verses, and
the disjunctive accentual signs (D'Oi^D *pDfi)- As no
writing was done there, we can but understand this passage
to convey the idea that the Levites repeated the passages
of the Thorah so subdivided in verses and the verses in
phrases, with the same accentuation, stress and emphasis,
as they heard it from Ezra ; but it does not say that he
invented anything. It is maintained elsewhere that the
main portion of the Massorah (not the vocal and accentual
signs) were as old as the Thorah itself, to which is added
(Taanith 276 and Meguillah 22a) that the verses were
originally established by Moses. Therefore Abba Areka
could not have thought of crediting Ezra with this work.
The Sopherim, " Scribes," succeeding Ezra, are given credit
only for counting every letter in the Thorah (Kiddushin
80a). 18. One invention is ascribed to Ezra, and this is the
Hebrew square-letter alphabet, called the n'llJJ'K UnD, now
the only style of the Hebrew Bible, the Aramaic portions
included. The oldest Hebrew alphabet, extant in coins and
inscriptions, is like the Phoenician, original Greek, Syrian,
Samaritan and other Shemites. With Ezra that new alpha
bet was brought into Palestine, and he transcribed the
Thorah in these characters. After him the Great Synod
transcribed all books of Holy Writ in the same manner.
The oldest alphabet was henceforth used for ordinary pur
poses ( Sanhedrin 21b and YerU'halmi Meguillah ¦R.rst Perek).
It is maintained that Daniel was the inventor of the new
alphabet, the Menai Memi was written on the wall in these

Pronaos to Holy Writ. 191
characters, therefore only Daniel could read the ominous
inscription on the wall, and Ezra learned it from him.
Nothing similar to these letters, except in the inscriptions
of Palmyra, has been discovered anywhere ; certainly noth
ing anyway like them in the cuneiform letters of Assyrian
origin. Therefore the rabbis of the Talmud diff'er as to the
signification of the term Kethab Ashurith. While some main
tain it was called so because it came with Ezra from Assyria,
others define the term 12n3i Itl'IND Kllj:^ "it was an im
proved writing," more distinct and more beautiful; while
others again maintain it was the original Hebrew alphabet
which in course of time had fallen in disuse and was restored
by Ezra. All agree, however, that the Sepher Ezra, the
Scroll, preserved in the temple as the authentic copy of the
Thorah, from wliich all scrolls of the Thorah used in syna
gogue, school or hall of justice had to be an exact copy, was
written in this Kethab Ashurith by Ezra the Scribe.
14. Connected ¦with this translettering of the Thorah was
the critical authentication of the text from the various
manuscripts and the bearers of the traditions. The latter
were supposed to know every word of the Thorah, with its
proper vocalization and accentuation and every letter of
every word, by heart, of which class Ezra is represented the
highest expert. Wherever the two authorities deviated from
one another, the differences were noted in the following
manner : IDn 2MD Hp P'lp N*?! p^nO p^nD X'?! ]''y
DHfiD ntOyi DHiDD ppn ii'7D') viz., the letters or words
as found in the manuscripts were retained in the text, and the
deviations of the tradionalists were noticed in marginal
notes. The authenticated copy of the Thorah required also
protection against the mistakes of transcribers or willful
interpolators ; to this end other parts of the Massorah were
established referring to writing. One ofthe most important
rules in this connection is that none of the sacred books
must be written from memory ; it must be copied word by
word and letter by letter from an authentic copy. Other
rules of this kind are large letters and small letters in cer-

192 The Authenticity of the Pentateuch.
tain fixed words (KDIH Nn^l O 'K) the exact space to
be left between words and verses, major and minor para
graphs (mainOI mmnfi) that certain pages must begin
with certain words ; the exceptional lineal arrangement for
writing the poetical portions of Scriptures, and many other
rules compiled in the rabbinical code of Maimonides, by
which the authentic copies could be recognized prima vista.
All these rules and exceptions are noticed in Talmud and
Midrash centuries before the Massorites of the sixth Chris
tian century invented the vowel and accentual signs ; hence
as far as the Thorah is concerned may be ascribed to Ezra,
as is always presupposed in the Talmud. This, however, is
all that can legitimately be ascribed to Ezra in connection
with the Thorah. There exists no documentary evidence
beyond this of Ezra's work, and these sufl[ice to establish
beyond a reasonable doubt that after him no change what
ever could be made in the text of the Thorah.
15. The Men of the Great Synod (n'^llJin nOJD ^S^^JX)
consisted of 120 members, viz., 44 Horim, ii Seganim, 22
Levites, 8 priests, all heads of family groups, high priest
and scribe as presiding officers, up to the time after the con
quests of Alexander the Great. After this time the number
of the body was changed to 70, and was called " The Beth
Din of the High Priests," from Simon the Just to Judah
Maccabee, and " The Beth Din of the Maccabees " up to the
reign of John Hyrcan, when the character and name of that
body was changed into Synedrion or Sanhedrin, no longer
presided over by high priest and scribe. Prior to this
change the body was called, generally, the Great Synod.
This body continued the work of Ezra in accordance with
his rules and regulations applied to all books of Holy Writ,
authenticated critically, translettered into Kethab Ashurith
(some books they compiled from defective manuscripts) and
established official copies for the temple archives, which re
mained the exemplary copy for all copyists. In course of
time it seems Former Prophets came first, then Later Pro
phets, then Hagiography, of which Psalms, Koheleth and
Shir Hashirim came last. There were in the temple salaried

Pronaos to Holy Writ. 193
correctors of copies made from the books kept in the
archives (Yerushalmi). They were caUed Zophim and
Hachraim., only the names of the two last officers are pre
served, viz.. Rabbi Joshua ben Chananiah and Rabbi Eliezer
ben Hyrcan, under whose direction Onkelos or Aquila trans
lated the Thorah (ibid. Megillah first Perek),* the correct
pronunciation and accentuation of each word and phrase
was the particular care of the scribes and teachers of the
young (Nedarim 87a), and the main science of the profes
sion. The Massorites could invent no more in their time
than the vowel and accentual signs to represent the sounds
known to every man of knowledge in Israel. The Maso-
retic notes only refer to exceptions, the rule of reading cor
rectly the text was always well known, as is evident from
the ancient Rabbinical literature, the ancient translations,
Greek, Aramaic, Syriac, Latin, Samaritan and Gothic. Thus
not only the manuscripts but also the pronunciation and
accentuation of each syllable of Holy Writ were preserved
intact, alike in all ages and in all parts of the world, as is
evident from the ancient manuscripts extant and especially
from the still more ancient commentaries and the united
testimony of the Karaites and the Christians of the first
centuries. There exists no solid ground on which to base
any doubt in the authenticity of any book of Holy Writ.
* The story of E. Simeon ben Lakish in Sopherim vi. 4, and in
Yerushalmi that scrolls of the Law found in the temple court were
rejected by a majority rule, because two had it so and one other
wise, the one always was rejected, is certainly a mistake of the
copyist, because no such rule in thia connection is given in the
Talmud. The passage is suspicious anyhow by its number three
and in three cases. The mistake of the transcriber ia perhaps that
he turned the statement to tell the very opposite of what was the
case, viz., although two were incorrect and one correct, yet the two
were rejected.
The End.

YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

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