the nature of a revolution. It radically changed the status of Israel. The covenant had been literally broken, as it was symbolically when Moses dashed in pieces the tables of stone. A change of administration was therefore found to be wise. That it had been foreseen and provided for does not alter the facts. It consisted in designating the whole tribe of Levi for service at the sanctuary in place of the first-born of each family. Why this tribe in preference to another was chosen the history gives us distinct intimation.* And how definitely the idea of substitution ruled throughout—one tribe being accepted for all the first-born-appears in the fact that the exchange was made in detail, man for man, by actual count. As far as one tribe failed to cover the whole number of first-born it was made good by a contribution of money to the sanctuary.† Previous to the worship of the golden calf, the build. ing of the tabernacle and the consecration of Aaron and his sons had been enjoined. Subsequent to it, the setting apart of the rest of the tribe of Levi for service at the sanctuary was legalized, and all the laws respecting worship, the maintenance of priests and Levites, and the like, were promulgated.

For details our limits allow no space. But it cannot be disputed that there was a highly fitting occasion in the exodus period for such a collection of laws as the one found in the middle books of the Pentateuch. To take them out of their

* Exodus xxxii: 26. Numbers iii: 46-48.

present historical setting, in which along with the narrative of the national revolt at Sinai and its alleged results are interwoven such incidents as that of the free-will offerings of the people for the tabernacle, the rebellion of Nadab and Abihu, the leprosy of Miriam, the diary of the journeyings of the camp from place to place, and scores of others, for any such reason as our critics give, appears to us rash and unjustifiable in the extreme.

*

The occasion for the Deuteronomic code as a product of this period is perhaps clearest of all. The representation is that the addresses in which it is included were spoken by Moses in the fields of Moab just before the crossing of the Jordan. The introductory address is a brief review of the experiences of the preceding forty years in the

* Kuenen seems to think the journalistic and chronological arrangement of the laws a suspicious circumstance ("The Hexateuch," pp. 6-9). On the contrary, there could hardly have been a more significant mark of genuineness. If they arose as he holds, they would almost certainly have been more systematically arranged, those having no special dependence on Moses or his times being relegated to that period of thirty-eight years in the wilderness of which we know so little. This, at least, is the method adopted by our critics. They do not venture to invent a history to suit the laws which they take out of their setting in the Pentateuch, but assign them dubiously to the exile or some other period of which we have no information that is pertinent. In the Pentateuch the only legislation assigned to the whole thirty-eight years of wandering are the miscellaneous laws found in Numbers xv, xviii, xix. Sporadic laws are everywhere connected with sporadic events, while the more important and numerous rest solidly on a basis of continuous history.

wilderness. The code itself has a hortatory, popular form, precisely such as the alleged circumstances might lead us to expect. It is especially noticeable in three particulars: It does not refer in detail to the body of priestly legislation found in the middle books of the Pentateuch, but only cursorily, though sometimes directly, to some parts of it.* It has laws peculiar to itself, and, as can easily be shown, they are such as grow out of the altered circumstances of the people. It repeats, enlarges, or otherwise modifies, as OCcasion seems to demand, the succinct precepts of the Book of the Covenant (Exodus xx: 23-xxiii). Kuenen denies that the code of Deuteronomy takes cognizance of any antecedent one; but in doing so he takes issue with nearly all of his associates, Wellhausen included, and is certainly in

error.

Now, in the very statement of these facts, sufficient ground for the existence of the third code is apparent. The others needed to be supplemented and modified in certain particulars by this, in order to fit them for a people like Israel at this juncture. It is not sufficiently to the point, though in general quite true, for Kuenen to say that, inasmuch as the laws contained in ExodusNumbers were themselves shaped for a settled people, cultivating the soil, there should have been no demand for any modification of them on entering Canaan. It is literally true of the greater part *For examples See Dillmann ("Com.," Leipz., 1886), p. 605.

of the Levitical priestly legislation of the middle books. It required and received no modification. There were other laws that were repeated, it would seem, for the mere sake of repetition and emphasis, as in the case of that concerning the destruction of idols, the worship of Moloch, food as clean and unclean, mourning customs and the like; but, on the other hand, there were some laws which, on the ground of altered circumstances or new experience, actually needed, as they appeared, to be revised to some extent. As it respects such laws, it would be disingenuous to affirm that in their original form they assume to be final, or so to cover the future with their claim as to admit of no alteration.*

But is not the very fact that so many of these laws are in form adapted to the settled life of Palestine, though purporting to be made in the wilderness, evidence in itself of their origin long after the time of Moses? So it is thought by Kuenen. If it had been Moses, he thinks, who made the laws, he would not have made so little of the transition from the wilderness to Canaan, recognizing it only "tacitly," and leaving it altogether "unregulated." The Pentateuch laws, however, were not made with sole and exclusive reference to the land of Canaan, not even the Levitical code. The camp, with the tabernacle as its nucleus, is everywhere recognized as the central feature of the national life.

*For a list of passages see p. 205 of "The Pentateuch : Its Origin and Structure," etc.

Moreover, the code of Deuteronomy-especially the laws peculiar to it and those modified in it— is a tangible disproof of the intimation that Moses recognized but tacitly the transition from the wilderness to Canaan, and left it unregulated. A principal object of the book was just this: to prepare the way for the transition. And it is only on the basis of his theory of the origin of Deuteronomy, that is, by reasoning in a circle, that Kuenen can make out the contrary, and not even thus. The entire Pentateuch history, from the beginning of the life of Abraham to the crossing of the Jordan, is marked, as by almost nothing else, by a steady outlook towards Canaan. It is for this reason that the prolonged Egyptian sojourn of the whole people is given less space in it than is assigned to the life of Joseph. It is fully admitted that the laws of the Pentateuch were largely made for an agricultural people. But it is a fact that has other bearings than those to which Kuenen calls attention. It harmonizes perfectly and most significantly with the Biblical statement of their origin and purpose.

Supposing, then, that the Pentateuch codes arose in this manner-that is, as described in detail in the Bible-there is nothing surprising in the fact that each has a peculiar linguistic character, and is marked by fixed formulæ not found in the other groups, though too much may easily be made of this fact. Comparing the code of Deuteronomy with that of the middle books, for example, there are no differences of this sort that