vernick, Keil, and Kalisch reply that there were two places of the name, and that this is the older place, bearing its name from a much earlier period. For this view it is urged: (1) That another Dan is expressly mentioned (Dan-Jaan) 2 Sam. xxiv. 7, a fact not to be set aside without changing the text. Hitzig here cuts the knot by arbitrarily changing to, and reading Dan Laish. Gesenius, Winer, and others would change to. The latter change has no support except the Vulgate rendering, "in Dana sylvestria;" and the designation is found nowhere else. Dr. Davidson conveniently takes no notice of the reading. (2) The other names of the chapter are very old names (some of them obsolete in the time of Moses), Bela, En-Mishpat, Siddim, Salem, Hazezon Tamar. (3) The chapter is remarkable for giving the older name and appending the modern, when there was a modern one, - Bela which is Zoar; Siddim which is the Salt Sea; En-Mishpat which is Kadesh; Shaveh which is the valley of the king; consequently his style would have been "Laish which is Dan," had he intended that place. Other considerations of less weight are adduced by Hävernick. The other reply is, that, though there was but one 'city called Dan, its later and more famous name was substi tuted for the earlier and obscurer, either by the incorporation of a marginal reading, or by design. Various indications point to this conclusion: (1) The chapter itself, as a whole, with its ancient names and minute designation of persons and localities, bears marks of the highest antiquity—of having come down from a time when the facts were recent.? (2) The occurrence of this one modern name unexplained, in the midst of a narrative dealing so exclusively with ancient, and in part obsolete, names, while pointing somewhat clearly 1 Hävernick's Introduction to the Pentateuch, p. 148 (Clark). 2 Thus Ewald reckons it (Geschichte, i. 353) a relic of Patriarchal times. Tuch says, that but for this one word Dan "we might well-nigh believe we were dealing with a writer of the period previous to the Israelitish invasion" (Commentar in loco). Knobel (in loco) admits that the Jehovist must have drawn the account "from an older writing," and he assigns to it the first place in his so-called "war-book." to the well-known Dan, is a phenomenon pointing also to another hand than that of the original writer; the more especially as his method was, in case of two names for the same place, to mention first the older and annex the later.1 (3) Strong proof that some uncertainty or confusion must have existed as to this name in the manuscripts, is found in the fact that both the Samaritan Pentateuch and the Arabic version contain the reading " Banias" for Dan. (4) Add to this the facility with which a name that became so famous as the northern boundary (“from Dan to Beersheba") would supersede a name wholly obscure; and we reach a conclusion which apparently solves all the phenomena of the case, that the text originally contained an obscure and older name, perhaps Laish, and that after the name was superseded, the new and noted name took its place in the manuscripts. This is the view of Ewald.2 We assent to it. We certainly cannot be reproached for assuming a change of text by the men who, on much slenderer foundation, in order to make good their own objection are obliged to assume a change of text in 2 Sam. xxiv. 7. Ex. xvi. 35, 36. "And the children of Israel did eat manna forty years, until they came to a land inhabited; they did eat manna until they came into the borders of the land of Canaan. Now an omer is the tenth part of an ephah." As Moses was dead before the manna ceased, it is argued that he did not write the first of these verses; and that the explanation in the second corresponds to the idea of a later origin. Hengstenberg replies, that the evident intention is not to mark the time of the cessation, which fact is stated in Josh. v. 11, 12, but the length of its continuance. It was not a transient benefit to meet a sudden emergency, but was continued during the whole exile, from the first to the fortieth year, when they reached the borders of their future inherit 1 If with Tuch we take these explanatory additions as the glosses of a later hand, we are still forced to the position that the original writing which used the old names, Bela, etc., only, could not have contained the name Dan. 2 Ewald's Geschichte, Vol. I. p. 73. ance. The reply has force. And yet (1) the very definite specification of coming into the borders of Canaan, (2) the appended definition of an omer, and (3) the distinct parenthetical character of the verses, together with the anticipatory nature of the first, make us willing to view them as additional statements by a later hand, such as in the New Testament we find in John v. 4, and part of vs. 3. Similar passages occur in Deut. ii. and iii. In ch..ii. 12, afafter relating how the Edomites expelled the Horims and occupied their land, the speaker adds, " as Israel did unto the land of his possession." Rosenmüller maintains truly that the passage may be translated "as Israel does," i. e. is in process of doing, and that we need not suppose a later hand than Moses. But we find (1) that this passage is omitted in one Hebrew manuscript and in the Samaritan version; (2) that vs. 10-12 interrupt a direct speech, by a circuitous and apparently unnecessary detail of outside history, and (3) that they change in style from the first to the third person. Therefore we incline, with Jahn and many others, to regard them as an explanatory addition by a later hand. For the same reasons (except the first), and in part for additional considerations, we regard certain similar explanations in the same. discourse (viz. ii. 20–23; iii. 9-11 and perhaps 14) as later explanations, though Hengstenberg argues vigorously to the contrary. Dr. Davidson inadvertently helps us with the true remark that "they are parentheses, which break the continuity of the composition." To the above objections may be added certain others brought forward by Dr. Colenso, not always of his origi nation. The bishop of Natal demurs to the possibility of Moses's knowing and describing so well the location of mounts Ebal and Gerizim (Deut. xi. 29, 30). But, to take no higher view, the monuments of Egypt exhibit abundant warlike intercourse of Egypt with Syria and other countries of Asia;1 the history of Abraham and of Jacob and his family shows that peaceful ' Wilkinson's Ancient Egyptians, Vol. I. p. 394 seq. communication was easy; and the narrative (Gen. xxxvii. 25 seq.) reveals apparently a regular traffic from Gilead to Egypt, passing not far from Shechem (xxxvii. 14, 17, 28), consequently in the neighborhood of these very mountains. Dr. Colenso objects that the name Gilgal, in the same passage (Deut. xi. 29, 30), was not given till the people had been circumcised after entering the land. An instance of unpardonable recklessness. Almost any recent authority would have informed him that besides the "Gilgal" near Jericho (named as he describes), there was one and probably two other places of that name in Palestine : one at the modern Jiljuleh near the ancient Antipatris, and another at Jiljilia, some twelve miles south of these mountains, probably the one here intended.2 The mistake is the more inexcusable, that the locality described in the passage contradicts it. Colenso alleges as anachronisms the expression "shekel of the sanctuary" (p, Ex. xxx. 13; xxxviii. 24, 25, 26). "This," he says, "is before there was any sanctuary; the story, therefore, could not have been written by Moses, or by one of his age. This is clearly an oversight." 3 It was clearly an oversight in the bishop not to look into Gesenius's Thesaurus, and find the phrase there translated "sacred shekel," in accordance with the predominant use of the word p. The phrase, so understood, might be used either (1) to distinguish some special kind of currency (an undepreciated from a depreciated is Benisch's suggestion, sustained, as he conjectures, by Gen. xxiii. 16), at the same time defining the shekel as twenty gerahs; or (2) more probably, since the tabernacle service was now about to be established (ch. xl.), this is simply the institution and settlement of the sacred shekel for the tabernacle tax, defining it as twenty gerahs. 1 Robinson's Researches, Vol. III. 47; Winer's Realwörterbuch, and Kitto's Cyclop., Article Gilgal; Knobel in loco; Gesenius's Thesaurus, Supplement, p. 79; Keil on Josh. ix. 6. 2 Winer's Realwörterbuch, p. 430. Keil on 2 Kings, ii. 1. Knobel supposes it to be Jiljuleh. 3 Colenso on the Pentateuch, Part II. pp. 86, 87. The frequent occurence of the word (prophet) in the Pentateuch, is alleged against the early origin of the book, on the strength of the statement 1 Sam. ix. 9. "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 (s) was beforetime called a seer (n)." It is proper to remark in passing, that the passage in Samuel is itself viewed as evidently a marginal note or later addition. See Thenius on the passage. Accepting it, however, as a correct statement of fact, it is fully explained by Le Clerc's suggestion: The word was used in the time of Moses, went into disuse in the time of the judges, then was revived again. The word "beforetime" has ample range in the time of the judges preceding Samuel, and the state of the case is fully set forth in 1 Sam. iii. 1, "The word of the Lord was precious in those days, there was no open vision." Hence, as the fact of full prophecy, so the proper word prophet, had gone into disuse, being for the time displaced by the more limited term seer. Num. xv. 32. "And while the children of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man that gathered sticks on the Sabbath-day." This, says Colenso, would seem to have been written when they were no longer in the wilderness. Very likely. They reached the wilderness (of Paran, xii. 16; xiv. 16) only after leaving Hazeroth (xii. 16), and certainly had left it when they entered the borders of Edom (xxxiii. 37), if not before. These passages comprise, we believe, all, or nearly all, the alleged anachronisms. The reader will probably be surprised to find so great pretences dwindling into so slight performances. Some of these allegations are gross oversights in the objectors; others, pertinacious refusals to admit a natural and familiar principle of interpretation, or to allow scope or depth to the writer; some half-a-dozen it is surprising that they are so few in a volume of such antiquity1 1 Some amount of change in texts transmitted by copying must be considered as unavoidable. The changes that the most valued individual manuscripts may VOL. XXI. No. 83. 69 |