1. We first state the direct testimony of the laws to their own origin
1. We first state the direct testimony of the laws to their own origin
Which is of a twofold character: (a) when simply Mosaic origin is claimed; (b) when it is explicitly stated that Moses committed certain laws to writing.
(a) A great number of laws are introduced by formulas like the following: "The LORD spake unto Moses." "And the LORD called unto Moses, and spake unto him out of the tabernacle of the congregation." "And he [Moses] said unto Aaron." "And the LORD spake unto Moses and to Aaron." "And the LORD spake unto Moses in Mount Sinai." These introductory statements cover the whole book of Leviticus, and in Numbers we find the same repeated throughout. All these laws claim for themselves Mosaic origin.
(b) The passages in which Moses is said to have committed certain laws to writing are the following—
Exodus 17:14: "And the LORD said unto Moses, Write this for a memorial in a book, and rehearse it in the ears of Joshua: for I will utterly put out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven." The statement falls outside of the Code, and is important for our present purpose only in so far as the book referred to might furnish an indirect testimony to the fact that Moses wrote the history of his lifetime. The Massorah has it, rpsb (in the book), with the article. Though the presence or the absence of the article depends on the punctuation, still we may inquire whether the Massorah had no good grounds in putting it here, in spite of its omission in the Greek and Arabic translations (the only ones which could express it). For, as the punctuation without the article would have doubtless been the more natural one, its addition must have rested on positive reasons in the nature of the case. Now, we cannot but find it absurd to call a separate note of this character "a book," or even to preserve it as an isolated sentence in written form. The passages which Bleek adduces, do not prove that a single sentence committed to writing could constitute a book. One of them (Jeremiah 32:19) does not speak of a book, and the others refer to more comprehensive laws or decrees. The most plausible interpretation is that which the Massorah intimated by adding the article viz., that Moses was accustomed to commemorate important events and commands, and that this book, the origin of our present Pentateuch, is referred to by God.
Exodus 24:4: "And Moses wrote all the words of the LORD." The words of the Book of the Covenant are meant, which included chapter 20:22-23:33. Whether the Decalogue was included is not certain, but improbable for the following reasons: (a) The book was read in the audience of the people (verse 7); this would have been superfluous in case of the Decalogue, which God himself had promulgated with audible voice. (b) It is not stated that Moses wrote the Decalogue: God himself wrote it on tables of stone. (c) The parallel Covenant-law in chapter 34, equally committed to writing, did not repeat the Decalogue.
Numbers 33:2: Moses wrote the list of stations during the desert-journey (verse 3-49).
These passages cover a comparatively small part of the Sinaitic legislation. Critics have rashly inferred that we have no positive testimony of its codification by Moses, and have even gone to the length of asserting that the passages just enumerated exclude the writing of any other part of the law by Moses. Dr. Kuenen says, "When in the first four books of the Pentateuch, only a few pieces of little length are ascribed to Moses, it becomes probable that all the rest, in the writer's opinion, is non-Mosaic." Delitzsch and Bleek and many others are of the same opinion.
We believe that this conclusion is as unwarranted as the other extreme, to which some conservative critics have gone, of asserting that we might reason, from the part being written by Moses, that the whole was. The truth is, that these passages prove nothing in either direction; since the special command to write was clearly occasioned by extraordinary circumstances, and served a special purpose. That Exodus 17:14 presupposes a more comprehensive work, we have seen already. The Covenant-law had to be written separately for its symbolic use in the solemn transaction (chapter 24). After the Covenant had been broken, the second law (chapter 34) was, of course, written separately after the analogy of the first.
There can be, then, no doubt that the Jehovistic and Elohistic legislation claim for themselves Mosaic origin. We must accept this self-testimony, so long as it has not been disproved by other evidence. Accordingly we might stop here, and, remembering how the unity of the laws in Exodus-Numbers has been established, dismiss the subject. Still, it may be well to survey the contents of the intermediate books with special regard to—