and "the priests, the Sons of Levi." On the other hand, the emoluments of both priests and Levites are much smaller; the Levites losing their annual tithe and only getting a share of a triennial tithe, the rest of which goes to the strangers, the orphans and the widows of the nation. Instead of occupying certain cities reserved for them, the Levites are represented as scattered among the tribes, homeless and poor, and needing aid from the charitable.2

There is a similar change with respect to locality, in the worship of Jehovah. The very earliest legislation seemed to allow of more than one shrine of Jehovah: "In all places where I record my name I will come unto thee." Later legislation, however, clearly limited the priestly sacrifices to the presenceplace of the sanctuary and of the ark of Jehovah. But there is no specification as to the location of this sanctuary in Canaan, nor anything to forbid a change of place for the tabernacle. In Deuteronomy, however, the one tabernacle is throughout regarded as fixed in one holy place, "the place which Jehovah your God shall choose out of all your tribes, to put his name there."4 This place is plainly Jerusalem. And with an urgent and intense zeal, nowhere shown in the earlier legislation, the people are exhorted to "utterly destroy" all other places of worship.5 The second legislation also provides for at least two in'Deut. xviii. 1. 2 Numbers xviii. 20-32, with Deut. xiv. 27-29. 4 Deut. xii. 5. 5 Deut. xii. 2.

3 Ex. xx. 24.

stitutions concerning which no regulation had been previously made.1

A new spirit breathes through this after-legislation; an air as of a more advanced civilization and culture. It assumes a settled society, a people dwelling in cities; and it speaks to this people as from a higher level of morality.

The archaic crimes of the laws in the second code of Exodus2 are not repeated. The change in the ground of the Sabbath betokens a spirit of humanity which finds constant expression. The regulations concerning war show this character strikingly. Two new enactments guard against the cruelty of substitution in the death penalty and the savagery of excessive scourgings.5 Female slaves receive their freedom in the seventh year, as well as males. A profounder tone of religion is very perceptible. Almost immediately after the Decalogue, in the opening of the central address, occurs that lofty expression of the Divine Unity and of the spirituality of religion in which Israel has for centuries made its confession of faith in the services of the Synagogues" Hear, O Israel: Jehovah our God is one Lord and thou shalt love Jehovah thy God, with all thine heart and with all thy soul and with all thy might." These two conceptions charge the whole book, and give it that rich and ripe spirit which led

1 Deut. xvii. 14-20, and xiii. 1-5. $ Deut. xx. 4 xxiv. 16.

5

xxv. 3.

6

2 Ex. xxi.-xxiii. 14.

7

XV. 12. ' vi. 4, 5.

Ewald to call it the Gospel of John of the Old Testament.

Even the style of the book differs strikingly from that of the other writings. This is felt at once in passing from any of the earlier books to Deuteronomy. The calm simplicity of the historian and the dry precision of the Jurist give place to the impassioned rhetoric of the orator. The sentences move in a stately rhythm, with swelling and sonorous cadences. Literary art has evidently polished these resonant paragraphs, which have the balancing of clauses of a Hebrew Macaulay, and the reiteration of telling phrases of an Israelitish Matthew Arnold. The touch of this cunning hand is indeed to be traced more than once through the earlier portions of the Pentateuch, in the recurrence of the unmistakable phrases which characterize this book: a hint this that the style of Deuteronomy is not the new manner of the great Lawgiver, when he assumes the role of the orator.1

An open mind must find it difficult to resist the impression that Deuteronomy is the work of another hand than that which penned the bulk of the earlier books, writing in another period.

III.

When we examine the other books, we see on

the surface of the story abundant marks of a composite formation. The joinings in the narrative show through the literary finish that is spread over the whole work. There is no such homogeneousness in any of these books as Deuteronomy presents. Again and again we are sensible, as we read, of awkward transitions, of breaks in the narrative, of gaps that leave us puzzled, of passages unnaturally interjected, of needless repetitions, which betray an editor in the process of compilation rather than an author throwing off a continuous story in the white heat of creation.

Genesis has many of these water-marks of literary composition. In the story of Joseph, just as he is landed in Egypt, a slave in a strange land, we are taken aside to hear an irrelevant tale of Judah and Tamar,' after which the narrative is resumed, as though there had been no abrupt interruption.

We read in the opening of the twentieth chapter: "And Abraham journeyed from thence toward the south country;" and we naturally look back to the preceding chapter to get the bearings of his course; only to find that the locality of the story there told was one in which Abraham had not been staying, and that we have to retrace our steps through several chapters in order to start this new movement aright. Two lists of Esau's wives are given the discrepancies of which are unexplained. The origin 1 xxxviii. 2 xiii. 18. xxvi. 34, with xxviii. 9, and xxxvi. 2.

3

3

of several names is thus reduplicated; of Beth-el;1 of Beersheba; and of Israel.3

2

4

Abraham, on account of his advanced age-being then an hundred years old—could not believe that a son should be born to him; yet, forty years later, he takes Keturah to wife, and has six sons by her.5 Sarah likewise feels herself so decrepit that she laughs at the thought that she "should have pleasure," notwithstanding which, after this she was so fascinating that Abraham passed her off as his sister to save his life. These and other perplexities of a similar kind in Genesis, can be readily explained by the conclusion to which they have forced one of the most judicious of modern critics: "The most probable solution is that the author of the book adopted early records wholly or in part into his work, retaining partially or entirely their original form and character without any general attempt to connect them organically, or to blend them into one whole.'

8

Exodus repeats these literary features. At a critical moment in the mission of Moses, when he is bidden by Jehovah to go to Pharaoh on behalf of the Hebrews, a genealogical table of the chief families of the tribes of Reuben, Simeon and Levi is given

* Bleek. Introduction to the Old Testament, i. 266. (Bohn's ed. 1875.)