Deuteronomy, is to produce a strong impression of the unity and symmetry of the whole. The middle portion is found to be quite as suitable to the date of the Exodus, in respect of its subject matter, as the earlier and later portions of the book. But when we come to consider the

IV. Style of the language in which it is written, and especially of the Hebrew original, the probability already established rises almost to the certainty of demonstration. The style of the Hebrew of Deuteronomy is unique. It is to all other Hebrew what the Latin of the Augustan age and the purest Attic Greek are to later stages and imitations of those two classic tongues. The poetry of David, the proverbs of Solomon, the visions of Isaiah, the lamentations of Jeremiah, and the polished Hebrew of Ezekiel, all have their separate beauties. The style of Deuteronomy bears no resemblance whatever to any of them-far less to the mixture of Hebrew and Chaldee which we find in Ezra, or the imitated Hebrew of the latest prophets. While there are undoubted archaisms in Deuteronomy (the words for "he" and "she" are not distinguished in the Pentateuch, and similarly the word for "damsel" of Deut. xxii. 15 to end, is not to be distinguished from the common word for a "boy," except by the pointing), yet the diction throughout is that of a highlyeducated and cultivated mind. There is no difference whatever between the Hebrew of the middle portion and that of the rest of the book. And the Occurrence of Deuteronomic phrases, in Jeremiah

argument. Quotations from the Bible in a volume of sermons do not prove the Bible to have been made up from them. The setting of the phrases is a matter of quite as much importance, as the occur rence of the phrases themselves. Even when judged by the concord. ance, the Hebrew of Deuteronomy will be found distinct from that of the prophets. And it must be re membered that no concordance ever exhibits a writer's style. The most it can do is to analyse his vocabulary. It can tell us little or nothing of the structure of his thoughts. Further, the application of one uniform system of vowel-pointing, accentuation, and division, to the whole of the prose of the Old Testament, has. tended greatly to obscure the characteristic differences of the Hebrew writers. No one who has not read passages from several Hebrew writers without vowel-points, could at all imagine what a difference the absence of these makes to the perceptibility of the style. It is to be feared that too much of the attention of modern commentators has been absorbed by the external dress and uniform of the Hebrew of the Old Testament; to allow them to perceive what the style of a Hebrew writer really is. Unless some excuse of this kind may be made, I find myself wholly unable to conceive how the Hebrew of Deuteronomy can be attributed by scholars to any known writer among the later prophets. The style of Joshua alone bears any resemblance to it. The ruggedness of Samuel and David, notwithstanding all David's command of language, exhibits a most remarkable diversity.

The culture of the prophets is

wholly different from that which we find in the Pentateuch. At the same time it is very possible that the Hebrew style of Moses was peculiarly his own. It may well be supposed to have been above the level of the common language of the nation. The early Egyptian education and varied experience of Moses would tend to produce a somewhat special mode of thought and expression.

V. Commentaries on Deuteronomy. I regret that the time allotted to me for this work has not permitted me to make use of modern commentaries to any appreciable extent. Canon Espin's notes in the Speaker's Commentary I found useful. I thought it my duty to pay

special attention to modern critical theories about later authorship, and in order to test them I found it necessary to ascertain somewhat precisely what the Jewish view of the various enactments in Deuteronomy was. I therefore read Rashi's commentary carefully throughout, and in all cases of difficulty, consulted other Jewish writers also. The references to the Talmud in Rashi are numerous; and these, in many instances, I verified. In par ticular the alleged discrepancy concerning the laws of tithe was entirely cleared up to my mind by this means. I am satisfied that no contradiction between Deuteronomy and the earlier books of the Pentateuch can be reasonably maintained.

CHAPTER I.-"These

be the words which Moses 1 Or,

spake unto all Israel on

(5-8) INTRODUCTION.

(1) These be the words which Moses spake unto all Israel. The first two verses and the three that follow form a kind of double introduction to the book, and perhaps more especially to the first portion of it, which ends with chap. iv. 40.

On this side Jordan.-Litererally, on the other side Jordan from the writer's or reader's point of view.

In the wilderness.-These words define still further the expression which precedes: "on the wilderness side of Jordan," or "before they crossed the Jordan, while they were still in the wilderness. Strictly speaking, the words "in the wilderness" cannot be connected with what follows, for "the plain" described is on neither side of Jordan, but below the southern end of the Dead Sea.

In the plain.-i.e., the 'Arâbah. Usually the plain of Jordan; here the valley that extends from the lower end of the Dead Sea to the head of the Gulf of Akabah.

Over against the Red Sea. -Heb., opposite Súph. In all other

this side Jordan in the wilderness, in the plain over against 'the Red sea,

places in the Old Testament, when we read of the Red Sea, it is Yam Sûph. Here we have Sûph only. On these grounds some take it as the name of a place. (Comp. Vaheb in Sûphah, Num. xxi. 14, margin.) But we do not know the place; and as the Jewish paraphrasts and commentators find no difficulty in accepting Sûph by itself as the sea, we may take it of the Gulf of Akabah. The plain between Paran and Tophel looks straight down to that gulf.

Between Paran, and Tophel...-Literally, between Paran, and between Tophel and Laban, &c. : that is, between Paran on the one side, and Tophel and Laban and Hazeroth and Dizahab on the other. This is the literal meaning, and it suits the geography so far as the places are yet identified. The small map at p. 239 of Conder's Handbook to the Bible shows the desert of Paran stretching northward from Sinai on the left, and on the right, Tophel and Hazeroth (the only other places identified among these five) at the two extremities of a line drawn from the south-east end of the Dead Sea in the direction of Sinai. Tophel is taken as Tufilch,

between Paran, and Tophel, and Laban, and

and Hazeroth is 'Ain Hadra. Laban must be some "white" place lying between, probably named from the colour of the rocks in its neighbourhood. Dizahab should be nearer Sinai than Hazeroth. The Jewish commentators, from its meaning, "gold enough," connected it with the golden calf. And it is not inconceivable that the place where that object of idolatry was "burned with fire," and "stamped" and "ground very small," till it was as "small as dust," and "cast into the brook that descended out of the mount" (chap. ix. 21), was called "gold enough" from the apparent waste of the precious metal that took place there; possibly also because Moses made the children of Israel drink of the water. They had enough of that golden calf before they had done with it. If this view of the geography of this verse be correct, it defines with considerable clearness the line of march from Sinai to Kadesh-barnea. It lies between the mountains on the edge of the wilderness of Paran upon the west, and the Gulf of Akabah on the east, until that gulf is left behind by the traveller going northward. It then enters the desert of Zin, called here the plain, or 'Arâbah. This desert is bounded by ranges of mountains on both sides, and looks down to the Gulf -of Akabah. Behind the western range we still have the wilderness of Paran. On the east are the mountains of Edom, which Israel first had on their right in the march to Kadesh-barnea, and then on their left in a later journey, in the last year of the exodus, when they com

Hazeroth, and Dizahab. (2) (There are eleven days'

passed the land of Edom. Tophel lies on the east of this range, just before the route becomes level with the southern end of the Dead Sea.

But the whole of the route between Paran on the left and those other five places on the right belongs to Israel's first march from Sinai to Kadesh. It takes them up the desert of Zin, and, so far as these two verses are concerned, it keeps them there.

(2) Eleven days' journey from Horeb -In our English Version this verse forms a separate sentence; but there seems nothing to prevent our taking it as completing the first verse. The route between Paran on the one side and the line from Tophel to Hazeroth on the other is still further defined as "a distance. of eleven days' journey from Horeb in the direction of Mount Seir, reaching to Kadesh-barnea." The position of this last place is not yet determined with certainty. But the requirements of the text seem, upon the whole, to demand that it should be placed high up in the wilderness of Paran, not far from the border of the wilderness of Zin. It must be close to some passage out of the wilderness of Zin into the Negeb, or south of Judah.

journey from Horeb by the

speech (Num. xxxii. 8), where he refers to the sending of the twelve spies. And with the exception of three places where the name is used in describing boundaries, Kadesh-barnea is always found in speeches. This first chapter of Deuteronomy is the only one which contains the name both with and without the appendage -barnea, which connects it with the wanderings of Israel (verse 32.) Upon the whole, it seems most likely that only one place or district is intended by the name.

We have now obtained the following view of this first short introduction to the Book of Deuteronomy. It consists of words spoken (in the first instance) to all Israel on their march from Sinai to Kadesh-barnea. But the following verses show that the Law was further "declared" to Israel in the plains of Moab, at the close of the fortieth year of the exodus and of Moses' life. It does not seem possible for us to separate entirely what was spoken earlier from what was declared later. In several places we have the record of words spoken; for example, in this very chapter (verses 9, 16, 18, 20, 29, 43), and chap. v. 5, &c. And the very name Deuteronomy implies the repetition of a law previously given. Further, the exhortations contained in this book are all enforced by the immediate prospect of going over Jordan and entering the promised land. But when Israel marched from Sinai to Kadesh-barnea, it was with this very same prospect full in view. It does not appear, by what Moses "said" at that time (verse 20), that he had any thought of their

way of mount Seir unto

turning away from the enterprise. But if so, what supposition is more. natural than this that he delivered the same kind of exhortations in the course of that earlier journey which he afterwards delivered in the plains of Moab? And although the distance is but eleven days' march, the Israelites spent something like three months on the way, and in waiting for the spies to return from Canaan.

We conclude, then, that the first two verses of Deuteronomy are an editorial introduction, stating that the substance of this book was first delivered to Israel by Moses between Sinai and Kadesh-barnea. The further introduction which follows (in verses 3-5) shows the words to have been re-delivered in the plains of Moab, and preserved in their later rather than their earlier form. But it is also possible that the two first verses of Deuteronomy are an introduction to the first discourse above. (See Note on chap. iv. 44.)

Is it possible to advance a step further, and conjecture with any degree of probability to what hand we owe the two first verses of the book? The expression "on the other side Jordan" (which some take to be a technical term) seems strictly to mean on the opposite side to the writer. The writer must also have been acquainted with the places mentioned (three of which are not named in the previous books); he could not have drawn his knowledge from the earlier part of the Pentateuch. And so entirely has the geography of Deut. i. 1 been lost by tradition, that all the Targums and Jewish commentators