tives from Egypt. It harmonizes well, too, with the oft-repeated reference to the former thraldom. And, happily, the monuments furnish us with positive evidence that such a law would at least be no anachronism at the time of the Exodus. In an extant treaty between Rameses II. and the king of the Hittites, one article relates to this very matter of the mutual exchange of fugitive servants. That Moses was acquainted with this fact, and intentionally forbade what it as positively required, we need not assert. Enough that in this case the science of archæology comes promptly forward to set a bound to the literary fancies that are so inclined to run riot among these ancient records.1

Of peculiar historic as well as moral interest is the Deuteronomic law of divorce (xxiv. 1-4). The form in which it is found, the character of much of the legislation with which it is associated, as well as the very nature of the case, serve of themselves greatly to weaken the force of the objection that it is too developed a law for the period of the Exodus. Were no weight to be allowed to the statement in Genesis (ii. 21-24) for the genuineness of which our Lord seems to vouch (Matt. xix. 4, 5, 8), that monogamy was the original and designed relationship of husband and wife, it might be expected that the relation of the sexes would be one of the first and principal respects in which a perverted nature would manifest itself. And we find accordingly that cognizance is taken of it in what purports to be the earliest history and the earliest laws (cf. history of Abraham and the seventh commandment). And the regulation now before us might be regarded as little more than a specification under the seventh commandment. It is remarkable alike for its concessive and its restrictive character. It assumes the prevalence of divorce, - a fact also recognized in a number of other laws of this and the Levitical code (Lev. xxi. 7; Deut. xxii. 19, 29). It assumes that it was carried on with some degree of formality. And such a custom, with the form it took of giving a "bill of divorcement," our law does not forbid; neither does it command it. Herein our Lord corrected the Pharisees' false quotation of the Pentateuch, changing their "Why did Moses command" into "Moses suffered."

In its restrictions, on the other hand, the law assumes the sacredness of the marital tie, and provides against an obvious tendency to break and renew it at will. Its sole prohibition, however, is of the re-marriage of divorced persons after a second marriage had been en

1 See Records of the Past, iv., p. 31 f.

tered upon by the former wife. This, as the words "after that she has been defiled" (cf. Numb. v. 20) indicate, it looked upon as a form of adultery and not to be tolerated. The law tends directly to the preservation of the original tie; and, in case it is severed, plainly encourages a single life in view of a possible later reunion. It does not rise to the plane of Malachi (ii. 13-16), who declares that God "hates putting away." But neither, on the other hand, does it misrepresent a Moses of the exodus, or go beyond what might have been expected of a legislation that followed and flowed out of the ten commandments.1

Punishment by flogging (Deut. xxv. 1-3) seems to have been resorted to in Israel chiefly for gross offences against sexual morality (Lev. xix. 20; Deut. xxii. 18). The spirit of the Deuteronomic law respecting it is thoroughly national in its recognition of the Israelitic election and brotherhood. At the same time the mode of inflicting the punishment by making the offender lie flat upon his face is thoroughly Egyptian, and positively out of harmony with the later rabbinical practice.2

Levirate marriage, legally sanctioned first in Deuteronomy (xxv. 5-10), had no doubt prevailed in its main features from the earliest. times. In the narrative of Judah's sin with his daughter-in-law (Gen. xxxviii.), assigned by critics to the document JE., we find the practice already in force to the extent that any breach of it is regarded as a serious crime. Accordingly, the Levitical regulation (Lev. xviii. 16), forbidding marriage with a deceased brother's widow, is obviously to be limited to cases where there were children, as also the Jews of our Lord's time understood it.3 And not only is our law in its place in the age of Moses with respect to that which goes before it, but also that which follows. The story of Ruth, whose scene is laid in the period of the Judges, is evidently not a little modified by it. The detailed proceedings of Boaz, his singular care to follow a certain. fixed order, his appeal to the regular legal tribunal of his city, and the motive he urges for his conduct, in which he uses almost the very language of our code, to "raise up the name of the dead upon his in

1 The last remark is fully supported by what is known from the monuments of ancient Babylonian customs. If a man would separate from his wife, who had not been untrue to him, he was obliged to pay her a sum of money so large that very few could have availed themselves of the legal right. Cf. Hommel, ibid., P. 417.

2 See The Criminal Code of the Jews according to the Talmud Massechath Synhedrin, by Berger. Lond., 1880, p. 122 f.

3 Versus Riehm, Gesetzgebung, etc., p. 68.

heritance," give at least a color of probability to the theory that the law of Deuteronomy was already a recognized authority in Palestine.

The next independent ordinance of our code prescribing punishment for a gross act of immodesty on the part of a woman (xxv. 11, 12) offers no internal characteristics by which its age might be even approximately fixed, unless it be the form of the punishment. The offending hand was to be cut off. It is the only instance in the Pentateuch where mutilation is directly enjoined. So unusual and severe a retribution for such an act would scarcely have been thought of in the later time.

The commission for the destruction of Amalek, found in Deuteronomy (xxv. 17-19), there can be little doubt, refers directly to Ex. xvii. as its basis and original. An entire clause of the Hebrew, and the most essential one, is repeated word for word. The appeal, moreover, is made in a way to indicate an event still fresh in remembrance: "Remember that which Amalek did to thee in the way as ye came out of Egypt." And still another side-light appears in an allusion to the present circumstances of Israel: "So it shall come to pass that when the Lord thy God hath given thee rest from all thine enemies round about, in the land which the Lord thy God is giving thee to possess as an inheritance, thou shalt wipe out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven; forget it not."

If now, on the other hand, we follow the biblical history of the relations of Israel to Amalek, subsequent to this supposed period of the Exodus, we shall see how impossible and absurd it would have been for such directions to be seriously promulgated as late as the reign of Josiah or even that of Solomon. After their first defeat in a sharplycontested battle with Joshua at Rephidim (Ex. xvii. 8-16), we find them joining the Canaanites in a successful attack on Israel at Hormah (Numb. xiv. 43-45). Later Balaam, in his prophecy, for some reason not clearly known, hails them as the "first of the nations," but predicts their total overthrow (Numb. xxiv. 20). Another hundred years follow, and, as allies of the Ammonites and Moabites, they make a partially successful foray upon the coasts of Israel (Judges iii. 13). Then Gideon successfully warred with them. But it was not till the days of Israel's first king that the Pentateuchal commission really began to be executed. In two great campaigns Saul broke their strength, wasted their land, and put to death their king (I. Sam. xiv. 48, xv. 2-33). The entire history of this war is pervaded by the

1 The infin. abs., like the emphatic imperative in Greek, Gesen. § 131, 4, b., is used.

spirit of the ancient code. Samuel's words to the king are: "Thus saith Jehovah of hosts, I am punishing (visiting judicially, 75) that which Amelek did to Israel. . . . Now go and cut off Amalek and utterly destroy all,' that he has" (Sam. xv. 2, 3). And thoroughly as Saul did his work, it did not satisfy the terms of his commission. David dealt the hostile remnant a heavy blow after their capture of Ziklag, and in Hezekiah's time, still a century before the date assigned by some to the Deuteronomic code, so reduced and feeble had they become that five hundred Simeonites are able to complete their overthrow and extinction (I. Chron. iv. 43). After this time the name of Amalek disappears from history.

Our code is brought to a fitting close by a peculiar formula of acknowledgment and thanksgiving. It is professedly given to be used immediately subsequent to the conquest and quiet occupation of the promised land. Critics are not satisfied with this account which the document gives of itself, and see in its strong liturgical cast positive marks of a later day. Kleinert, however, among others, takes exception to this opinion as being unworthy of an age in which the knowledge of the Vedas has ceased to be a monopoly. It may be added that such an objection is unworthy of an age that has brought to light the stores of information contained on Egyptian and Assyrian monuments. This one simple liturgical ceremonial of Deuteronomy we are able, in fact, to match with many far more elaborate ones, in different tongues, that date from even an earlier period. The wonder is, indeed, not that we have this one simple, prescribed formula of thanksgiving for the individual Israelite in his periodical visits to the central sanctuary, but that, in all the biblical literature before the Exile, it stands so much alone. We have really nothing of a precisely similar character with which to compare it. And in view of the consideration that prayer, in some form, must date

1 Das Deuteronomium, p. 104.

2 See especially an inscription from the tomb of Beni-Hassan, of the 12th Egyptian dynasty, in Warrington's When was the Pentateuch Written, p. 18 f.; also, the prayer of Menkaura to Osiris, dating as far back as the 5th dynasty (Wilson's The Egypt of the Past, London, 1881, p. 93), and the philosophical precepts of Ptah-hotep (ibid., p. 107 f.), computed to be five thousand years old; and cf. Rawlinson, The Religions of the Ancient World, p. 60 f., and 24, where he says of the religion of ancient Egypt that its “worship was conducted chiefly by means of rhythmic litanies or hymns, in which prayer and praise were blended, the latter predominating." For still other specimens of this liturgical worship see Records of the Past, vol. ii., pp. 105, 134; vol. iv., pp. 99-104; vol. vi., pp. 99–101; vol. viii., pp. 131-134.

back to the beginnings of human history, it would seem the height of captiousness to characterize the ceremonial before us as an anachronism in the age of Moses.1

Such, now, are the independent laws of Deuteronomy, the primary and essential elements, as we may suppose, of this remarkable code. And such are a few of the more patent internal characteristics by which its age as a whole, and in its several parts, might be approximately inferred. That they are demonstrative need not be held; that, however, they show an overwhelming weight of probability in favor of Mosaic origin throughout cannot well be denied. Such an origin, in fact, is directly or implicitly claimed by the great majority of the statutes brought under review, and especially by those that are of chief importance. If it be denied in the case of the rest, is it too much to demand that adequate reasons be given for wrenching them. from the ancient mould in which we find them imbedded?2

Mosaic claims, we are well aware, are often summarily dealt with in these days; but sometimes, perhaps, without sufficiently pondering the consequences. The alternative here, at least, does not lack in startling effects. If not Moses, then some one who would be thought to be Moses, or to write in the spirit of Moses. In either case, an antique flavor, Mosaic sanction is wanted. But why? If the critical theories prevailing in many quarters be adopted, there was no Moses who was worthy of such pains. And why, especially, such an excess of Mosaic coloring in a purely legal document, so that it might almost be thought that the laws were a conceit to magnify the half-mythical hero, instead of the name of Moses being used to give weight to the laws.

If not Moses, we ask again, then who? Some king of Judah or

1 The fact that the firstfruits are to be brought in the hands in a basket, forestalls any objection that might arise on the ground that we have here prescribed a different disposition of the firstfruits from that enjoined in another place (xviii. 4; cf. Numb. xviii. 12 f.).

2 So, too, Bleek, in a similar connection (Einleitung in das Alte Testament. Vierte Auflage, bearbeitet von J. Wellhausen, Berlin, 1878, p. 35): "Wir sehen also, wie ein bedeutender Theil der Gesetze und Anordnungen des Pentateuchs, sowohl dem Inhalte als der Form nach, dem Mosaischen Zeitalter angehören muss. Da wir nun als ein feststehendes sicheres Ergebniss gefunden haben, dass so bedeutende Theile des Gesetzbuches von Moses herrühren, dass also auf jeden Fall das Wesentlichste der darin enthaltenen Gesetzgebung ihm angehört, so sind wir nicht berechtigt, ihm einzelne der sich darin findenden und auf ihn zurückgeführten gesetzlichen Anordnungen abzusprechen, wenn sie nicht bestimmte Spuren eines abweichenden Characters und einer späteren Zeit an sich tragen."