are best (though not necessarily) explained by supposing some slight variations of the text, which are indicated by the connected circumstances. We apprehend that no respectable judicial body, in full possession of the facts, would allow these allegations a moment's weight against the clear testimony.

(v.) There are said to be indications in the Pentateuch that the writer lived in Palestine. The instances cited are few and feeble. The term "westward" (,, literally, "seaward"), often occurring (Gen. xii. 8; xxviii. 14, etc.), could have been used, it is said, only by a writer in Palestine, where the Mediterranean Sea was west. But Gesenius lays it down as a settled fact that the home of the Hebrew was Canaan. "It was substantially the language spoken by the Canaanitish or Phenician races, who inhabited Palestine before the immigration of Abraham and his descendants, by whom it was transplanted into Egypt and again brought back with them to Canaan." The word, therefore, was simply the old, settled term of the Hebrew language, retaining its conventional meaning wherever the speaker lived, just as a multitude of words in all languages retain their settled force when all the circumstances of their origin have passed away.

The same is true, very likely, of the word, east-wind, spoken of (Gen. xli. 6) as a blasting wind. This wind, it is said, though a parching wind in Palestine, is not so in Egypt. Kalisch, however, declares that a burning east wind, likely to blast the corn about Heliopolis, blows from the desert of Shur and the desert of Paran, and that it causes all vegetables to wither. Or the term may have a secondary meaning, designating a blasting wind from any quarter. Dr. Robinson says that the Arabs called the terrible wind which he encountered south of Beersheba an "east-wind" (shurkiyeh), though it blew from the south.2

undergo are seen in the manifold corrections and alterations of the Alexandrian and Vatican manuscripts. Let us remember the fate of Shakspeare.

'Hebrew Grammar, Introduction, § 2, 2.

Researches, Vol. I. p. 305, compare 287. The Septuagint renders vótos in Gen xli. 6.

The expression "within thy gates " (Ex. xx. 10; Deut. v. 14), is said by Davidson to be inapplicable in the desert. But in both instances the expression occurs in the decalogue, or permanent fundamental law of the people, and is a phrase of conventional meaning. The word is broad enough to apply to city, temple, palace, or camp (Ex. xxxii. 26, 27), though not employed of individual houses or tents.1

Deut. xix. 14. "Thou shalt not remove thy neighbor's landmark, which they of old time have set in thine inheritance which thou shalt inherit in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee." It is asserted that the allusion to the old landmark presupposes a long abode in the promised land. But is anything more simple? The lawgiver is legislating for the long future. He takes his point of view by anticipation, as the last part of the verse shows (" in thine inheritance which thou shalt inherit"), in the land they were to enter, and prohibits the removal of the landmarks which the fathers of the nation would have set for the whole course of the nation's history. The criticism which would preclude him from speaking thus of the old landmarks which they of old time had set, because it was not yet done, should go further, and preclude him from speaking of any landmarks at all, for none had yet been placed for Israel.

Ex. xxii. 29. "Thou shalt not delay to offer the first of thy ripe fruits." Dr. Davidson, emphasizing the word "delay," says, that as this is the first recorded legislation on the subject, and is merely an injunction not to delay it, the command supposes the offering to be in existence, and hence was written after the settlement in the land. This is small criticism. The expression evidently means "promptly offer thy first ripe fruits," — i. e. at once on their ripening. It is possible that the form of the command is modified by the fact that the Israelites were already familiar with the idea of offering the first to God in case of the offspring of animals and men (xiii. 2); indeed, they may have been familiar with the idea of offering first-fruits; for, as Winer shows, the practice is

1 Gesenius's Thesaurus, .

well known among heathen nations, and existed in ancient Egypt.1

It is objected by the same writer that the command (Ex. xxiii. 19), "The first-fruits of thy land thou shalt bring into the house of the Lord thy God," presupposes the existence of the Tabernacle in Palestine. How can a writer make such a declaration, when he finds the command embedded in the summary directions for the permanent establishment of the three great festivals, when the way is prepared for it by the direction just before (vs. 17), that three times a year all males shall appear before the Lord, and when the immediate sequel (ch. xxv.) contains detailed directions for the structure of the very tabernacle here briefly alluded to?

The same author quotes Leviticus xxvi. 34, 35, 43, in which it is said concerning the sabbatical years and the captivity : "then shall the land rest and enjoy her sabbaths..... because it did not rest when ye dwelt upon it." This, it is said, must have been written after actual disregard of the sabbatical and jubilee years. But the most careless reader will observe that it is the sequel of a full and stringent legislation on the whole subject (ch. xxv.), establishing the institution; and is part of a long and solemn injunction to observe these ordinances and "keep my sabbaths" (xxvi. 2). The lawgiver first sets forth the blessed rewards of obedience, then draws out in detail the punishments which shall follow the consequence of future disobedience, or, as he phrases it, because the land did not rest [will not have rested] in your sabbaths, when ye dwelt [will have dwelt] upon it. This is the whole case, and it hardly calls for notice, except to show what straws men will throw into the scale. Every passage in the Hebrew Bible that contains an utterance concerning the future and the relative past of that future, can be treated in the same manner.

To these passages of Dr. Davidson the bishop of Natal adds the phrase "beyond Jordan," as used in Gen. 1. 11;

1 Diodorus Siculus, I. 14. See fuller references in Winer's Realwörterbuch, Article "Erstlinge."

Deut. i. 1,5. He alleges that as Moses was approaching the Jordan from the west, the phrase in his mouth should designate the western side of the river, and not the eastern; hence Moses did not write it. The sufficient reply is found in his quotation from Bleek containing the objection," that the above formula was a standing designation for the country east of the Jordan, which might be used in this sense without regard to the position of the writer. So it is often employed in later times." It is like Transalpine and Cisalpine Gaul. So Gesenius. Bleek, however, would abate the force of the admission by saying that most probably the phrase first formed itself among the Hebrews after the settlement in Canaan. But the land was occupied, its modes of speech settled, and this great landmark there before the time of Abraham. Something more than a conjecture or supposed probability, therefore, is necessary to give any weight to the objection.1

The attempts to find evidence that the Pentateuch was composed in Palestine, certainly make a very feeble show.

(vi.) It is further asserted that certain "legendary and traditional elements" of the narrative, "involving insuperable difficulties and inconsistencies," show that Moses could not have been the author of it. Here we meet, mainly in the form of quotation from Professor Norton,2 the statements, which Dr. Colenso has repeated at third hand, concerning the mustering and marching of two millions of people, “in a single night," and the difficulties of life in the wilderness.

But Dr. Davidson's closing remarks on this head are

1 A fuller statement of the case would add that the phrase is sometimes used from a writer's position and that the same writer (especially Joshua) fluctuates. In Joshua its prevailing usage is as a geographical term, east of the Jordan (i. 14, 15; ix. 10; xiv. 3; xvii. 5) in the first of which cases he appends "eastward," as if to define the true meaning of the phrase. In three instances he uses it from his point of view to designate the western side (v. 1; xii. 7; xxii. 7), but avoids misapprehension in each case by adding, westward; so that the settled geographical meaning, when used without explanation in Joshua, is, from the outset, east of Jordan.

2 Davidson's Introduction, Vol. I. p. 100.

deeply significant, as showing his fundamental objection to any record of the supernatural. "Indeed, it is only necessary to examine the history, as it lies before us, to find in it a mythological, traditional, and exaggerated element, forbidding the literal acceptation of the whole. The character of Pharaoh under the circumstances detailed; the ten miraculous plagues, which spared the Israelites while they fell upon the Egyptians; the dogmatic mode in which it is narrated how Moses and Aaron presented themselves before Pharaoh; and the crowd of extraordinary interpositions of Jehovah on behalf of the people as they journeyed through the wilderness, show the influence of the later traditions on the narrative in dressing it out with fabulous traits. The laws of nature are unchangeable. God does not directly and suddenly interfere with them on behalf of his creatures; neither does he so palpably or constantly intermeddle with men's little concerns. The entire history is cast in the mould of a postMosaic age, unconscious of critical consistency, and investing ancestral times with undue importance."

Here we have, perhaps, the gist of the whole difficulty. Evidence can weigh little with one who determines that "the laws of nature are unchangeable," and that "God does not directly and suddenly interfere with them on behalf of his creatures." The remark cuts wide and deep; it sweeps alike the time of Moses and of Christ.

(To be continued.)