tioned, Levit. xviii. 28-"That the land do not vomit you out, as it vomited out the nations which were before you;"-after the land was inhabited by the Hebrews, for the country is called the land of the Hebrews, (Gen. xl. 15;) and after its cities were built, for Hebron, Beth-el, and Dan, are mentioned, (Gen. xxiii. 2, xxxv. 15, Deut. xxxiv. 1;) at a time when the tribe of Levi was despised, as it appears from the following:

Gen. xlix. 5-7. "Simeon and Levi are brethren; instruments of cruelty are in their habitations. O my soul, come not thou into their secret; unto their assembly, mine honor, be not thou united: for in their anger they slew a man, and in their self-will they digged down a wall. Cursed be their anger, for it was fierce; and their wrath, for it was cruel: I will divide them in Jacob, and scatter them in Israel."

It was written during the time of the kings, for they are mentioned, Gen. xvii. 6, 16-"Kings shall come out of thee:" xxxv. 11, and xxxvi. 31, it is said, "These are the kings of Edom, before there reigned any king over the children of Israel."

It was written before Jeroboam's time, for Beth-el is still a holy place, (Gen. xxxv. 15;) while it was considered "the sin of Israel," after Jeroboam had polluted it with idolatrous worship, (Hos. iv. 15, v. 8, x. 5, 8.) It was written before the time of David, for Edom is still independent, (Gen. xxxvi. ;) Ephraim has the supremacy, (chap. xlviii.,) and Shilo is still the place where the nation holds its sacred meeting, (xlix. 10?) Consequently, it is probable the document Elohim was written in the time of Samuel or Saul, [that is, about 1120, or 1055, B. C., or about four hundred years after Moses.] This is the conclusion of Stähelin, Bleek, and Tuch.

§ 159.

B. The Jehovistic Documents.

If these documents are the work of a restorer, then it is superfluous to bring forward the proof-so easily adduced that they were composed after the death of Moses, - which is mentioned, Deut. xxxiv. 10-12; after the expulsion of the Canaanites, Gen. xii. 6, xiii. 7; after the time of the judges, Num. xxxii. 41, where Jair is mentioned, who, according to Judg. x. 4,a was one of the judges.

These fragments are written considerable time after the Elohistic documents; after Saul's victory over the Amalekites, for, in Num. xxiv. 7, it is said, "Israel's king shall be higher than Agag, and his kingdom shall be exalted," &c., which first took place when Saul conquered Agag, (1 Sam. xv. 2-8;)-after David's victory over the Edomites and Moabites,-for, in Gen. xxv. 23, it is said "the elder (Edom) shall serve the younger," (Israel ;) in xxvii. 29. Israel's portion is to "be lord over thy brethren, and let thy mother's sons (the Edomites) bow down unto thee;" in verse 40, Edom, when he desires it, shall shake off the yoke of his brother; Israel is to rule both Edom and Moab :

Num. xxiv. 17-19. "I shall see him, but not now: I shall behold him, but not nigh: there shall come a Star out of Jacob, and a Sceptre shall rise out of Israel, and shall smite the corners of Moab, and destroy all the children of Sheth. And Edom shall be a possession; Seir also shall be a possession for his enemies; and Israel shall do valiantly. Out of Jacob shall come he that shall have dominion, and shall destroy him that remaineth of the city."

Studer (in loc.) thinks the author of the book of Judges has made a chronological mistake.

This could not be till after the event mentioned in 2 Sam. viii. 2—“And he [David] smote the Moabites, and measured them with the line, . . . . and so the Moabites became the servants of David;" verse 14, "and he put garrisons in Edom, ..... and all Edom became subject unto David." They must have been written after the commencement of the trade to Ophir, (for it is mentioned in Gen. x. 29;") after David had extended the limits of the kingdom to the Euphrates, which is mentioned as the border of the empire in Gen. xv. 18, and Ex. xxiii. 31; after the tribe of Simeon was mingled with the tribe of Judah, for Simeon does not appear in the blessing pronounced on each of the tribes, in Deut. xxxiii., and he seems to be included with Judah and Benjamin, in 1 Kings xii. 21, 23;' after the erection of the temple, for the house of Jehovah is mentioned, Ex. xxiii. 19, and xv. 13—the habitation of thy holiness.

It was written after the people were so well wonted to the formal worship of Jehovah, that they could not conceive of the ancient time without the same forms, nor without certain central places for this worship, such as Sichem and Beth-el, (Gen. xii. 7, 8,) Hebron, (xiii. 18,) Beer-sheba, (xxi. 33.) The reference to Edom's attempt to get free (xxvii. 40) would lead to the time of Joram, in whose reign "Edom revolted from under the hand of

• Because Asher, Nineveh, and Babel, are mentioned, some writers place this chapter, and i.-xi., in the Assyrian period; e. g. Pustkuchen, Hist. Krit. Untersuch, p. 88, Urgeschichte d. Menscheit, vol. i. 1821; Hartmann, 1. c. p. 782, sqq. Comp. Winer, l. c. vol. i. p. 398; Von Bohlen, 1. c. On the other side, Tuch, 1. c. p. xcvi., sqq.

See De Wette's Archäol. § 139. Winer, 1. c. art. Simeon. [It appears from Josh. xix. that Simeon had a district containing seventeen cities, in the south-west part of the land. Josephus, Ant. v. 1, 26. But two of these cities soon appear in the hands of Judah — Beer-sheba, (1 Kings xix. 3,) Ziklag, (1 Sam. xxx. 30 ;) and the Simeonites seem to be wanderers, 1 Ch. iv. 42, 43.] Tuch, l. c. p. xciv., sqq.

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......

Judah, and made a king over themselves." And though he defeated them in a battle, they still preserved their independence, (2 Kings viii. 20-23,) "and broke the yoke from off his neck," (Gen. xxvii. 40.) The reference to the annihilation of Amalek, (Num. xxiv. 20,)— "The head of the nations is Amalek, but his end is for destruction," would point to Hezekiah's time, for (1 Ch. iv. 43) it is said the Jews smote the remnant of the Amalekites, and possessed the territory, at the date of that passage. But, on the other hand, Num. xxi. 4-9, which commemorates the wonders of the brazen serpent, must have been written before the reformation of Hezekiah took place, in which he destroyed this serpent because the people still burned incense to it, (2 Kings xviii. 4;) and, besides, there are certain historical proofs of the existence of the first four books of the Pentateuch in their present form before that date." Therefore we must refer the Edomites' revolt (Gen. xxvii. 40) to the affair in Solomon's time, 1015—975 B. C., (1 Kings xi. 14, sqq.,)' and the destruction of the Amalekites (Num. xxiv. 20) to Saul's conquest of Agag, (1 Sam. xv.) However, Hitzig and Von Bohlen refer Num. xxiv. 24, to the history of Senacherib, while Bertholdt and Bleek regard it as an interpolation.

[But this revolt did not give them a lasting independence, for we still find them subject to Judah, 1 Kings xxii. 48, 49, 2 Kings viii. 20: yet the verse, Gen. xxvii. 40, may have been written in the time of Solomon, for to me it does not imply that they had broken the yoke. I would render it "By thy sword shalt thou live, and serve thy brother, and it shall be that, when thou desirest, thou shalt break his yoke from off thy neck." Our English translation has no meaning-" when thou shalt have the dominion......thou shalt break his yoke."—It may well enough have been written in the time of Solomon, just after the revolt, when the connection seemed so slight that the subject could escape the restraint when he would.]

§ 160.

C. Deuteronomy.

Moses cannot have been the author of xxxi.xxxiv., as it appears in special from xxxi. 24-26, xxxiii. 1, and xxxiv. The anachronisms in ii. 12, iii. 14, xix. 14, and xxxiv. 1, and the general manner in which the Mosaic history is treated, as in i.—iii., carry us to a period after Moses. The references to Jerusalem and its temple transfer us to the time when the Jehovistic documents of the other books were written. The references to the earlier books bring us to a time considerably later than that in which those books originated." The laws respecting the kings, prophets, and Levites, and that respecting the unity of worship, bring us to the period after Solomon, and to the times of Josiah, when the unity of worship was first carried out.' In xxxi. 26, is a command to place the law book in the ark; but as it was not there when the temple was consecrated, (1 Kings viii. 9,) this must have been written long after that event. The lamentation, xxxii. 5—33, must have been written in the most unfortunate period of the state. following predictions may refer to the exile of the ten

tribes:

The

Chap. iv. 27. "And Jehovah shall scatter you among the nations, and ye shall be left few in number among the heathen, whither Jehovah shall lead you."

a

See De Wette, Beitr. vol. ii. p. 393. Bleek, in Theol. Stud. und Krit. for 1831, p. 514, sqq. Eichhorn's doubts upon these chapters, § 434, and in the old edition, vol. ii. p. 406. Rosenmüller, Schol. in Deut. p. 451, sqq.

See Hoffmann, Com. in Mosis Benedict. in the Analekten f. d. Stud. d. ex. and Syst. Theol. vol. iv. p. 5, sqq. De Wette, Beitr. vol. i. p. 285. Archäol. 223-227. Comp. Bleek, Rep. vol. i. p. 21. Hoffmann — following Gesenius, Sam. Pent. p. 7 — refers xxxiii. 7, to the exile of Judah. On the other hand, see Bleek, p. 25.