1 Chronicles 1

Butler

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THIS Section is added to complete the plan of the work. As the text is in the main a transcript from Genesis 5th, 10th, 11th, 25th, and 36th, it is not deemed necessary to insert it here. B.

The genealogical tables, though to us comparatively uninteresting, were highly important among the Jews, who were made by prophetic promises extremely observant in these particulars. These tables give the sacred lives through which the promise was transmitted for nearly 3500 years; a fact itself unexampled in the history of the human race. Angus.—It was fit to begin these Chronicles of Jewish history by tracing the original and descent of this select people of God to the very first man, who was the son of God. This was the peculiar glory of the Jewish nation, that they alone were able to derive their pedigree from the first man that God created; of which no other nation could boast, or even make a shadow of pretence. For no book in the world shows the original propagation of mankind, but only the Holy Scriptures [originating with and preserved by the chosen People, the children of Israel]. Patrick.

1. Chron. chap. 1. The whole of these Patriarchal forefathers of the house of David down to Israel and Edom, sons of Isaac, appear to be divided into two nearly equal parts, to the second of which is added an appendix on the descendants of Edom till the times of David. The first part (vs 1-23) enumerates the ten Antediluvian Patriarchs from Adam to Noah, the three sons of Noah, and the Seventy Nations descending from them. In the second part (vs. 24-42) are given the ten generations from Shem to Abraham, the sons of Abraham by Hagar, Keturah, and Sarah, and the stocks derived from them, which again amount to Seventy. The Appendix (vs. 43-54) mentions the kings of the Edomites before David (Gen. 36) and the eleven dukes of Edom. Lange.

1-23. ADAM’S LINE TO NOAH. Only that one member of the family is mentioned who came in the direct order of succession. 4-23. Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth—The three sons of this patriarch are enumerated, because they were the founders of the new world and because the fulfilment of Noah’s prophecy (Gen. 9 : 25-27) could not otherwise appear to have been verified. 14-17. In these verses the names are not those of individuals, but of people who all sprang from Canaan; and as several of them became extinct or were amalgamated with their brethren, their national appellations are given instead of the personal names of their ancestors.

17. Uz, and Hul, and Gether, and Meshech; these were the children of Aram and grandsons of Shem (Gen. 10 : 23).

24-28. SHEM’S LINE TO ABRAHAM. 24. Shem, etc.—This comprises a list of ten, inclusive of Abraham.

29-31. SONS OF ISHMAEL. 23. These are their generations—The heads of his twelve tribes. The great northern desert of Arabia, including the entire neck, was colonized by these tribes; and if we can recover, in the modern geography of this part of the country, Arab tribes bearing the names of those patriarchs, i.e., names corresponding with those preserved in the original catalogue of Scripture, we obtain at once so many evidences, not of mere similarity, but of absolute identification. Nebaioth—Gave rise to the Nabathæans of the classic, and the Beni Nabat of Oriental writers. Kedar—The Arab tribe, El Khedeyre, on the coast of Hedgar. Abdeel—Abdilla, the name of a tribe in Yemen. 30. Dumah—Dumah and Tema, the great Arab tribes of Beni Teman. Thus Forster traces the names of all the heads of the twelve tribes of Ishmael as perpetuated in the clans or tribes of the Arabs in the present day.

32,33. Sons of Keturah. 32. Sons of Keturah—These became founders of nomadic tribes in the north of Arabia and Syria, as Midian of the Midianites (Gen. 36 : 35). Shuah—From whom Bildad sprang (Job 2 : 11). Jamieson.

Even where we are unable to perceive the historical importance of the prominent names, and the grounds on which they must have been of interest to every devout Israelite, the fact of such importance is to be presumed in every case. Lange.—These dry names from a hoary antiquity, when we know how to awaken them from their sleep, announce and revive the most important traditions of the ancient nations and families, like the petrifactions and mountain strata of the earth, which, rightly questioned, tell the history of long-vanished ages. Ewald.

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[The titles and publishers of leading works, additional to those given in previous volumes, are here appended to the names of authors. A helpful service in the interest of readers and writers is thus subserved.]

| W. A. | William Adams, D.D. The Three Gardens. (Scribners, N. Y.) | | — | — | | N. A. | Nehemiah Adams, D.D. L. Agassiz. W. Aikman, D.D. | | J. W. A. | Jas. W. Alexander, D.D. Wm. L. Alexander, D.D. | | Alf. | Henry Alford, D.D. Com. on Genesis, etc. (Strahan, London.) Bp. L. Andrewes, d. 1626. S. J. Andrews, D.D. God’s Revelations, etc. (Scribners, N. Y.) Lieut. Anderson. Joseph Angus, D.D. | | An. | An Unknown Writer. Thomas Aquinas. Duke of Argyll. Primeval Mas. (Routledge, London.) | | G. D. A. | Geo. D. Armstrong, D.D. Nature and Revelation. (Funk & Wagnalls, N. Y.) Thomas Arnold, D.D. Athanasius. C. A. Auberlen. The Divine Revelation. (Clark, Edin.) | | Aug. | Augustine, d. 430. Lord Bacon, d. 1626. Isaac Barrow, D.D., d. 1677. E. P. Barrows, D.D. W. Barrows, D.D. Alfred Barry, D.D. | | C. G. B. | C. G. Barth, D.D. Chron. Com. | | S. C. B. | S. C. Bartlett, D.D. Sources of History in the Pentateuch. (Randolph, N. Y.) Wm. Bates, D.D., d. 1699. M. Baumgarten, D.D. Rev. D. N. Beach. A. J. F. Behrends, D.D. J. A. Bengel, D.D., d. 1752. Chas. Bertheau, D.D., d. 1732. Bp. Wm. Beveridge, d. 1708. |

| W. G. B. | Wm. G. Blaikie, D.D. Bib. History, etc. (Nelson, London.) J. J. Blunt. Undesigned Coincidences, O. & N. T. (Carters, N. Y.) | | — | — | | G. D. B. | Geo. D. Boardman, D.D. Studies in Creative Week. (Appletons, N. Y.) Francis Bowen, LL.D. Layman’s Study of Eng. Bible. (Scribners, N. Y.) Rev. Chas. Bradley. Chas. A. Briggs, D.D. Biblical Study. (Scribners, N. Y.) Rev. S. A. Brooke. Thomas Brooks, d. 1680. Bp. E. Harold Browne. Bible (Speaker’s) Com. Genesis. (Scribners, N. Y.) Francis Brown, D.D. Amyriology. (Scribners, N. Y.) Sir Thomas Browne. Robert Bruce, D.D., d. 1631. D. Henry Brugsch. Hist. Egypt under Pharaohs. Rev. W. S. P. Bryan. Jacob Bryant, D.D., d. 1804. Bp. George Bull, d. 1710. Rev. Thos. Bulloch, d. 1730. John Bunyan, d. 1688. Rev. J. W. Burgon. N. C. B. N. C. Burt, D.D. Land and its Story. (Appletons, N. Y.) George Bush, D.D. Com. on Gen. and Exod. (Ivison, N. Y.) Horace Bushnell, D.D. Bp. Joseph Butler, d. 1752. W. A. B. Wm. Archer Butler, D.D. J. Glentworth Butler, D.D. T. R. Birks, D.D. The Pentateuch, etc. (Hatchards, Lon.) E. C. Bissell, D.D. J. B. Bittinger, D.D. Prof. J. S. Blackie. Sir Wm. Blackstone. |

David Gregg, D.D.

E. D. Griffin, D.D.

F. Guizot.

Thomas Guthrie, D.D.

Arnold Guyot, LL.D.

Creation. (Scribners, N. Y.)

H. B. Hackett, D.D.

Bios. of Scripture. (Sheldon, N. Y.)

Sir Matthew Hale, d. 1676.

William Hales, D.D., d. 1819.

Bp. H. Bp. Joseph Hall, d. 1656.

Contemplations on O. T.

Robert Hall, D.D., d. 1831.

Sermons, etc.

James Hamilton, D.D.

Sermons and Lectures. (Carters, N. Y.)

W. H. William Hanna, D.D.

The Patriarchs. (London.)

Rev. Thomas Harmer, d. 1788.

J. H. John Harris, D.D.

Man Primeral. (London, 1849.)

Samuel Harris, D.D.

Rev. F. Hastings.

H. A. Hävernick, D.D.

On the Pentateuch. (Clark, Edin.)

E. W. Hengstenberg, D.D.

Egypt and Books of Moms. (Clark, Edin.)

H. Matthew Henry, D.D., d. 1714

Com. on Gen. and Exodus. (Carters, N. Y.)

J. G. Herder.

George F. Herrick, D.D.

J. M. Hifferman, D.D.

John Hill, D.D.

Roswell D. Hitchcock, D.D.

Edward Hitchcock, D.D.

Charles Hodge, D.D.

Archibald A. Hodge, D.D.

M. D. Hoge, D.D.

Rev. W. B. Homer.

M. H. Mark Hopkins, D.D.

Evidences of Christianity: Law of Love; Sermons.

Bp. George Horne, d. 1792.

Bp. Samuel Horsley, d. 1806.

F. D. H. F. D. Huntington, D.D., Bp. Cent. N. Y.

E. P. Humphrey, D.D.

Bp. J. F. Hurst.

Prof. T. H. Huxley.

M. W. Jacobus, D.D.

Com. on Gen. (Carters, N. Y.)

Thomas Jackson, D.D., d. 1640.

R. Jamieson, D.D.

Com. on Gen.

Wm. Jenkyn, d. 1685.

Wm. Jones, of Nayland, d. 1800.

Flavius Josephus, d. 93.

Kal. M. M. Kalisch.

J. F. Keil, D.D.

Introd. to Pent.; Com. on Gen. (Clark, Edin.)

John Ker, D.D.

Sermons. (Carters, N. Y.)

Bp. Richard Kidder, d. 1703.

David King, D.D.

Kit. John Kitto, D.D. Dai’y Bible Elus. (Carters, N. Y.)

K. J. H. Kurtz, D.D. Hist. Old Covenant. (Clark, Edin.)

J. Laidlaw, D.D.

J. P. Lange, D.D.

Com. on Gen. and Ex. (Scribners, N. Y.)

S. V. Leach, D.D.

Stanley Leathes, D.D.

Wm. Lee, D.D.

Archbp. Robert Leighton, d. 1684.

F. Lenormant.

Beginnings of History. (Scribners, N. Y.)

T. L. Tayler Lewis, LL.D.

Divine Human in the Scriptures: Six Days of Creation. (Carters, N. Y.)

H. P. L. H. P. Liddon, D.D.

Bampton Lectures, 1867. (Scribners, N. Y.)

Bp. J. B. Lightfoot.

Philip Lindsley, D.D.

John Locke, d. 1704.

Wm. Lord, D.D.

C. E. Luthardt, D.D.

Martin Luther, d. 1546.

James McCosh, D.D.

Alex. McCaul, D.D.

Hon. T. B. Macanley.

D. M. Donald Macdonald, D.D.

Introd. to Pent., 2 vols. (Clark, Edin.)

A. M. Alex. Maclaren, D.D.

Hugh Macmillan, D.D.

Archbp. Wm. Magee, d. 1831.

R. Maguire, D.D.

Brownlow Maitland.

S. C. Malan, D.D.

Thomas Manton, D.D., d. 1667.

E. M. Erskine Mason, D.D.

Geo. Matheson, D.D.

H. Martensen, D.D.

Fred’k D. Maurice, D.D.

Patriarchs and Lawgivers. (Macmillan, N. Y.)

P. G. Medd, D.D.

The One Mediator. (Young, N. Y.)

Joseph Mede, d. 1638.

Henry Melville, D.D.

A. G. Mercer, D.D.

Bible Characters. (Putnam, N. Y.)

S. M. Selah Merrill, D.D.

East of the Jordan. (Scribners, N. Y.)

Sir J. D. Michaelis, d. 1791.

Com. on Laws of Moms.

Hugh Miller.

Wm. Milligan, D.D.

T. S. Millington, D.D.

H. H. Milman, D.D.

History of the Jews. (Harpers, N. Y.)

| M. | George Moberly, D.D., Bishop of Salisbury. J. F. Montgomery, D.D. J. B. Mozley, D.D. Rolling Pools in Early Ages, etc. (Dutton, N. Y.) Max Muller. | G. R. | Leopold Ranke. George Rawlinson, D.D. Origin of Nations; Egypt and Babylon. (Scribners, N. Y.) Present Day Tracts. (Rel. Tr. Soc., Lon.) Histor. Illus. (Samner.) P. LeP. Renouf. Religion of Anet. Egypt. (Scribners, N. Y.) J. H. Riggs, D.D. B. & F. Ev. Review, British and Foreign Evangelical. | | — | — | — | — | | J. P. N. | Jas. G. Murphy, D.D. Com. on Gen. and Exodus. (Estes, Boston.) H. B. Nadal, D.D. Ernest Naville. Sore-City of Pilhorm, etc. (Trubner, London.) J. H. Newman, D.D. Sermons—many volumes. Bp. Thomas Newton, d. 1782. Rev. J. P. Norris. | S. R. | Brit. Quar. Rev. Review, British Quarterly. No. Brit. Rev. Review, North British. Cont. Rev. Review, Contemporary. F. W. R. Fred’k W. Robertson, D.D. E. Robie, D.D. Edward Robinson, D.D. Thos. H. Robinson, D.D. Stuart Robinson, D.D. Printed but unpublished Lectures on the O. T. sent by the author for use in these volumes. Prof. Henry Rogers. Super. Origin of Bible. (Scribners, N. Y.) G. Rorison. H. O. Rowlands. Bib: Student. (W. R. Harper.) John Ruskin. | | O. | G. F. Oehler, D.D. Theology of O. T. (Funk & Wagnalls, N. Y.) C. Von Orelli. O. T. Proph. of God’s Kingdom. (Clark, Edin.) B. M. Palmer, D.D. E. H. Palmer. Hist. of Jewish Nation. (Lon. Rel. Tr. Soc.) Wm. Paley, D.D., d. 1805. E. A. Park, D.D. C. H. P. C. H. Parkhurst, D.D. Sermons, 2 vols. (Randolph, N. Y.) Bp. Symon Patrick, d. 1707. Com. on Gen. and Exodus. Joseph Parker, D.D. People’s Bible, Gen. and Ex. (Funk & Wagnalls, N. Y.) S. R. Pattison. Pres. Day Tracts, Vol. 3. (Rel. Tract Soc., Lon.) W. W. Patton, D.D. Andrew Peabody, D.D. Bp. John Pearson, d. 1686. George Peck, D.D. Sabbath Essays. (Meth. Book Conc., N. Y.) J. J. S. Perowne, D.D. Dr. Fred’k Pfaff. Austin Phelps, D.D. Studies of O. T. (Cong. Pub. Soc., Boston.) H. W. P. Rev. H. W. Philpott. Pic. Bib. Pictorial Bible. A. T. Pierson, D.D. E. H. Plumptre, D.D. Matthew Pool, D.D., d. 1679. Annotations on Bible. R. S. Poole. W. B. Pope, D.D. J. L. P. J. L. Porter, D.D. Noah Porter, D.D. Bp. B. Porteons, d. 1808. Prof. R. Proctor. E. B. Pusey, D.D. Rev. Philip Pyle, d. 1799. | R. P. S. P. S. P. S. R. P. S. P. S. R. P. S. P. S. R. P. S. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. R. P. S. | |

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| SECTION | | PAGE | | — | — | — | | 144 | The Seventh-Year Sabbath, and Year of Jubilee. | 422 | | 145 | Hebrew Slavery. | 429 | | 146 | Respecting Vows as Offerings. The Nazarite Vow. | 432 | | 147 | Offerings of First-Born of Man and Beast. Of First Fruits, etc. Of Tithes. | 436 | | 148 | Ordinances Respecting Food : Clean and Unclean Animals ; The End and Purpose of these Ordinances. | 440 | | 149 | Ceremonial Uncleanness and Purification : Leprosy in the Person, the Garments, and the Dwelling. | 446 | | 150 | Ceremonial Uncleanness and Purification : Water of Purification for Contact with the Dead. Childbirth. Bodily Issues. | 451 | | 151 | Thoughts Respecting the Hebrew Ritual. | 456 | | 152 | Unlawful Marriages. Divorce. Marrying a Brother’s Widow. Jealousy Offering. Punishment of Defaming Husband. Sins against Chastity. | 458 | | 153 | Idols and Altars to be Destroyed. Idolaters, Enticers to Idolatry, False Prophets, and Wonder-Workers to be Put to Death ; and Idolatrous Cities to be Burned. Magical Arts and Divination Penally Condemned ; Also Child-Sacrifice to Molech. | 463 |

| 154 | The Civil Government Instituted by Moses : Its Distinguishing Elements, and Its Influence upon Subsequent Civilizations. | 468 | | — | — | — | | 155 | The Appointment of Judges, by Jethro’s Counsel. Requisites of Character. Classification. | 476 | | 156 | The Administration of Justice : Supreme Court ; Charges to Judges : Witnesses ; Punishments, Design and Kinds. | 483 | | 157 | Crimes, Injuries, and Penalties : Theft and Burglary ; Damage or Loss ; Injuries to Persons and to Cattle. The Law of Retaliation. Death-Penalty for Special Crimes (Other than Murder). Stoning of the Sabbath-Breaker ; And of the Blaspheming Son of Shelomith. Modes of Inflicting Death. | 490 | | 158 | Death Penalty for Murder. Cities of Refuge for Accidental or Justifiable Homicide. Purgation of a Community for a Hidden Murder. | 496 | | 159 | The Widow and the Fatherless ; The Stranger and the Poor. Gleanings of Harvest and Vintage. Usury. Pledges for Loans. | 501 | | 160 | Humane and Merciful Precepts : Parapet on Roof ; Exemption from Public Service ; Straying or Overburdened Animals Restored or Helped ; Muzzling of the Ox, etc., Forbidden. | 507 |

| SECTION | | PAGE | | — | — | — | | | Canaan. Exhortations to Obedience, based upon JEHOVAH’S Gracious Disclosures and Dealings. | | | 183 | Second Parting Address : Introduction. Reminders ; Warnings ; Entreaties. | 640 | | 184 | Same, Continued : Past Wilderness Dealings and the Prospective Canaan Inheritance as Motives to Fidelity. | 647 | | 185 | Same, Continued : Warnings, Reminders, and Pleadings : A Blessing and a Curse Set before them. | 652 | | 186 | Same, Continued : One Central Sanctuary. Law Respecting the King. | 658 | | 187 | Same, Continued : The Prophet like unto Moses. Intimation of a Succession of Prophets. Directions Concerning Warfare. | 666 | | 188 | Same, Concluded : Forbidden and Allowed Fellowship. Thanksgiving and Prayer at Presentation of First-Fruits and of Second Tithe. Summary of Engagements between JEHOVAH and Israel. | 672 | | 189 | Third Address : Stone Monuments Inscribed with the Law to be Erected on Mount Ebal. Blessings and Cursings to be Proclaimed on Gerizim and Ebal. The Twelve Curses Pronounced on Ebal. | 678 | | 190 | Blessings Promised to Obedience : At Sinai ; Afterward on the Plains of Moab. | 682 | | 191 | Prophetic Curses : At Sinai ; Amplified on the Plains of Moab. Promises of Restored Favor upon Repentance. | 686 | | 192 | Closing Address, in Connection with Solemn Renewal of Covenant. Renewed Appeals to Past Mercies, Calls to Fidelity, and Warnings of Punishment for Apostasy. | 697 | | 193 | Great Truths Respecting the Divine Revelation. . . . | 701 | | 194 | Conclusion of Final Address. . . . . | 708 | | 195 | Special Messages : of Moses, to the People, to Joshua, to the Priests and Levites ; of Jehovah to Moses, and to Joshua. | 715 | | 196 | The Dying Song of Moses. . . . . | 721 | | 197 | Blessing of the Tribes by Moses. . . . . | 731 | | 198 | Vision of Canaan from Pisgah. Death, Burial, and Encomium of Moses. | 737 | | 199 | Supplementary : Genealogical Outline of 1 Chron. . . . | 748 |

EXPLANATORY NOTE.—Dislocations of text, in this volume, are made in the interest of chronological order, as respects the History ; and of natural sequence in the subjects, as respects the Legislation. While the matter of the Books of Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy is largely re-distributed in the codifying process, yet careful note is made throughout of the distinctive character, the special relation, and the true unity of each of these Books. Further, as to subjects of critical inquiry, it is believed that the main points both of positive exposition and definite refutation are sufficiently presented in these pages.

CHRISTIANITY stands in organic connection with the Old Testament religion, both being parts of a gradually developing system. Of the Hebrew people, Ewald writes: “The history of this ancient people is, at the foundation, the history of the true religion passing through all the stages of progress by which it attained to its consummation; the religion which, on this narrow territory, advances through all struggles to complete victory, and at length reveals itself in its full glory and might, to the end that, spreading abroad by its own irresistible energy, it may never vanish away, but may become the eternal heritage and blessing of all nations.” G. P. F. —While the economies are two, while the Old and the New Testaments differ widely in their literary features, there still remains the one series of truths revealed by God to man for his salvation. The Old and the New Testaments are still one book in virtue of the absolute unity of the truths which they reveal. They are the great fundamental truths of Christianity: the truths of the one living and holy God; of man made in the image of God but fallen; of sin; of man’s inability to save himself; of God’s desire to save him; of the salvation provided by the merciful God; of atonement; of the friendship of God; of his communion with man; of prayer; of providence; of holiness; of a complete redemption. The two religions, in virtue of this community of truth, are one religion; the two theologies are one theology; and the two Testaments—the Old Testament and the New—to quote the words of Chalmers, are not “cross-lights that dazzle and perplex the beholder, but are the two golden candlesticks lighted up for the Church of Christ upon earth, and which, while that Church has being, will never be taken away.” De Witt.

The Bible occupies a place in the literature of the world distinct from that held by any other volume. It contains the bulk of the literary productions of one race—the Hebrew; it lies at the foundation, permeates all the materials, forms the very capstone itself of the splendid literary structure reared by another race—the Anglo-Saxon; while other peoples the globe over acknowledge its surpassing merit. The Bible holds a like position in religion. Among religious writings, this book stands pre-eminent; its morals are purer, its teachings nobler, its influence more notable than all other so-called sacred books. Where its precepts are honored, there progress in all that concerns man’s betterment is found. Its followers are earnest and aggressive; and as the Book is known, men acknowledge its truth and become its devoted adherents. The Bible claims supreme authority over men. It enters into the State, comes into the social circle, opens the door of the family, and penetrates the soul of each individual; everywhere declaring the true principles whereby all the relations of this life should be governed. This authority is demanded as a right, for the Book claims Divine origin. It is a revelation, disclosing the one God, man’s distance from him, and the bridge that spans the distance.

In its spiritual aim the Bible differs from other books. “Instruction in righteousness” is its aim. All that pertains to the spiritual welfare of man is its object. It reveals God as one regarding justice and loving mercy, it pictures man as guilty and condemned, it displays God’s great purpose of redemption in Christ Jesus. This purpose seen in dimmest outline in Eden as the triumph of the good over the evil, reflected in shadowy form through patriarch, priest, and prophet ever develops—its shadows ever lessening, its outline ever filling until it bursts in the grand, full splendor of the Cross and the Resurrection. We, looking backward, see God’s purpose thus accomplished, and in this light much of the mystery is dissolved. What to Hebrew sage and people appeared as a flickering rushlight, to us blazes as the full-orbed sun at noonday. Here then is seen the aim of the Book in the Divine Man, the Lord Christ. This aim must guide our interpretation; forgetting it, we are wanderers on the desert and all around is strange and dreary. The Bible is one, yet many; giving each book its value as a unit, they combine in one grand integer. “It is,” to use the words of Dr. Briggs, “the unity of the ocean, where every wave has its individuality of life and movement. It is the unity of the continent in which mountains and rivers, valleys and uplands, flowers and trees, birds and insects, animal and human life, combine to distinguish it as a magnificent whole from other continents. It is the unity of the heaven, where star differs from star in form, color, order, movement, size, and importance, but all declare the glory of God.” E. R. Pope.

The Old and New Covenants are identified morally and spiritually. The same moral principles of benevolence, truth, and justice prevail throughout the Scriptures. The moral code of both covenants is the same. The Decalogue is the moral law for all men and for all ages. It consists of two grand principles, supreme love to God and sincere love to man, on which hang not only the law and the prophets but also the apostles, like all the branches of a tree on the trunk. The ground of all obedience is the revealed character of God, and especially his love as the Lord our God and Redeemer, and the motive or mainspring in the human soul is felt love. The righteousness of this law the Son of God, as the Son of Man, has not only fulfilled, but magnified and made honorable. Consequently, obedience under the Gospel is enjoined on the same grounds and from the same motives—love to God for his revelation of his love in the person and work of Christ. The new moral commandment of the Gospel is certainly not that we love God supremely or one another with a pure heart fervently, but that we love each other as Christ hath loved us. It is a new yet an old commandment, old as Adam in its principle, and as Moses in its formal basis, and new merely in its formal motive, the gracious work of Christ; which is a new thing in the earth, a new form of the Divine love. And all the spiritual or gracious feelings required and exercised under the Law and the Gospel are the same.

The form of worship is different, but the spirit is the same. The former accordingly is changed, but the latter remains unchanged and unchangeable. The same faith and the same fear, the same hope and the same joy, the same humility and the same holiness, run like a perennial and pearly stream throughout both economies. The principles of subjective religion are the same throughout. A complete moral and spiritual identity prevails.

The two covenants are doctrinally identified. Their doctrinal oneness is as conspicuous as the harmony of the solar system, as the unity of the earth itself, or the unbroken unity of the arch of heaven. Not only is the grand method of salvation doctrinally the same, there is also a complete and constant agreement in the minor details of the development of doctrine, expressed in different languages and in different forms of phraseology. The great Teacher and the authors of the New Testament constantly quote and expound the facts and truths of the Old Testament, as teaching the doctrines which they merely developed and declared. It is, indeed, their text-book and book of reference on all occasions. They regard the doctrine of the prophets as the same as their own, both in its source and in its substance. A grand succession of writers of different ages and countries, some of whom were even ignorant of each others’ writings at the time they wrote themselves, have concurred in revealing the very same truths to us, on whom the ends of the age are come. And the two Testaments are mutually interpreting. The New Testament expounds the Old, which in turn illustrates the New. Both are to be expounded on substantially the same principles. Mutually necessary and singly unintelligible, the one unlocks the other. We read the Old in the clearer light of the New, and the New in the light of the language and literature of the Old. As the human race was furnished by the sacrifices and sensible signs of the law with the high ideas of sin, satisfaction, and salvation, realized in the Gospel, we must now read the dispensations in the light of one another. The Epistle to the Hebrews in particular is a key to the symbolism of the law, but the rich life of Jesus Christ, the end of all the law, is the clear light in which we read those mystical sacrifices which threw their shadows forward, and now shed down their light upon the Cross. The Law and the Gospel are not merely the lesser and greater lights that rule respectively day and night, but binary stars that commingle and combine their beams to dispel the darkness of the moral world. James Scott.

In the wider and deeper sense of the word, the whole Old Testament is Messianic. This is the position taken by Christ, the best exegete of the Old Testament, and by the entire New Testament, the best commentary on the Old. Christ’s advent and work are everywhere declared to be historically and materially based upon the Old Testament dispensation and revelation, of which, in turn, they are the fulfilment and consummation. With one voice, the New Testament teaches that the Old represents the preparatory stage, which, when in the fullness of time the Word became flesh, was transformed into the actual establishment of God’s kingdom upon earth. In this manner the central thought of the books of pre-Christian revelation and their connecting link is their record, in word and deed, of the gradual unfolding of God’s plans for man’s redemption, which plans became a reality and fact through the person and work of the Messiah. The Old Testament books are accordingly not an accidental collection of the literary remains of the Hebrew people, but are the providentiality given and preserved records of the development, in time and history, of the kingdom of God on earth, from the germs in the prot-evangelium in Genesis 3:15 to the completion of the work in the Messiah. Schodde.

The grand idea of the kingdom of God is the connecting thread that runs through the entire course of divine revelation. We behold a kingdom, planted in the remote past, and carried forward to its ripe development, by a series of transactions in which the agency of God mingles in an altogether peculiar way in the current of human affairs. There is a manifestation of God in act and deed. Verbal teaching is the commentary attached to the historic fact, ensuring to the latter its true meaning. For example, the emancipation of the Israelites from bondage in Egypt was the standing illustration of the character of God, who revealed himself in that act, and the symbol of the great redemption from sin, itself not less an act and achievement than the event which prefigured it. G. P. F.

The “Kingdom of God,” internal and external, is the Content and End of all prophecy, the realization of God’s will on earth, as in heaven. It is established first of all subjectively in the heart, and next, politically, in a national dominion of the holy people, which becomes, historically, the seed of a development ordained, under new forms, to embrace the whole earth. Israel is the result of prophecy. The Torah itself goes back to the prophetic word. Again, every prophet stands upon the Torah, which all prophecy presupposes, and denounces judgment for covenant transgression, and blessing for covenant obedience. The covenants of Inheritance made with Abraham, and of Royalty with David, rest upon prophecy. All the promises included in these, all the political, ethical, judicial, and ritual parts of the Torah—in short, the whole Old Testament administration, finds its principle of unity in the prophecy and promise of the “Kingdom of God,” set up to regulate the individual and national life, and foreshadow the subjection of the world’s dominion to the sovereignty of the heavens. Messianic prophecy has no other justification than this. On this rested the Theocracy. On this rests the Church. West.

God’s revelation at no period was given in the form of abstract delineations of truth and duty, but has ever developed itself in immediate connection with the circumstances of individuals and the leadings of Providence. From first to last it comes forth entwined with the characters and events of history. Not a little of it is written in the transactions themselves of past time, which are expressly declared to have been “written for our learning.” And it is equally true of the Law and the Gospel, that the historical lines with which they are interwoven, while serving to increase their interest and enhance their didactic value, by no means detract from their general bearing, or interfere with their binding obligation. P. F.—The whole history of the children of Israel is the expression of the plans of God for the unfolding of his kingdom on earth. This is much more true than that the history of the Church is the expression of the New Testament ideal; for the people of the Old were to a greater extent under the direct and theocratic guidance of God, than are those of the New; and so the history of the Church of the Old Covenant—i.e., Old Testament history, is for this purpose especially instructive. It is God’s revelation in deeds rather than in words; and in many instances the truths underlying the former are more transparent than those expressed by the latter. Harper.

It is the hand of God himself that ever appears to be directing the transactions of Old Testament history. The things that happened to his chosen people could not otherwise have accomplished the great ends of their appointment; for through these God was continually making revelation of himself, and bringing those who stood nearest to him to a fuller acquaintance with his character as the God of life and blessing. It was therefore of essential moment to the object in view that his people should be able without hesitation to regard them as indications of his mind; that they should not merely consider them as his, in the general sense in which it may be said that “God is in history,” but his also in the more definite and peculiar sense of conveying specific and progressive discoveries of the divine administration. How could they have been recognized as such, unless the finger of God had, in some form, laid its distinctive impress upon them? Taking into account, therefore, all the peculiarities belonging to the typical facts of Old Testament history—the close relation in which they commonly stood to the rites and institutions of a religion of hope, the evident manner in which many of them bore upon them the interposition of God, and the place occupied by others in the announcements of prophecy—they had quite enough to distinguish them from the more general events of providence, and were perfectly capable of ministering to the faith and the just expectations of the people of God. P. F.

Nowhere is personality more strongly emphasized than in the religion of the Old Testament—the personality of God, and, as a consequence of this, the personality of man; yet always in such a way as not to obliterate the line of demarcation between the Divine and human. The Divine is never humanized, the human is never deified. The Old Testament knows of no demigods. Its first man is as simply and purely human as any of his descendants. This feeling of personality gives to the religion of revelation a peculiar hue. It substitutes reverence and love for slavish fear. It throws a sacredness around human life. It infuses a kindly spirit into legislation. And the question now arises, How shall we account for its presence here, when it is so sadly wanting elsewhere? For the origin of Old Testament religion Naturalism can furnish no satisfactory answer; we must have recourse to a supernatural revelation. Man, in his present state, is unable of himself to rise to the true idea of God. He has, indeed, a vague feeling of an ultimate power lying behind the visible cosmos; but what that power is he cannot say. It is to him the “Unknown God.” How poor are even the highest conceptions which a mind so profound as Plato’s was able to form of him! Yet from the first there existed among the Hebrew people a true idea of God and of his relation to the world. Whence did it spring? Evidently not from philosophical reflection; for we cannot ascribe to the untutored Semitic mind an achievement in thought that lay altogether beyond the most cultivated Aryan mind. The only explanation lies in a Divine revelation. If man is to know God, God must come to man. And this he did when he appeared to Abraham. It was at a time when the knowledge of the true God, possessed by former ages, had become lost, at least, in Abraham’s native home and among his kindred. The Bible speaks of earlier revelations than that made to the “father of the faithful;” but whatever their character, in his day they had ceased to be remembered, or, at least, obeyed; and his friends beyond the Euphrates served other gods than the Lord of heaven and earth. Then it was God came to Abraham, and whether by outward theophany or by inward manifestation to his spirit, it was a real historical coming. He came not to convey to his mind abstract theological truths, but to enter into a communion of love with him; and in this communion, Abraham, by living experience, came to know God as he could not know him simply by an exercise of the reason—came to know him in his unity, his spirituality, his personality, his holiness. He recognized him as the only source of true salvation, and such was his assurance, that he chose to abandon fatherland and friends rather than surrender his faith in this supermundane, heavenly, and only true God. This confidence was the root of his life and influence. “He,” says Ewald, “not only steadfastly maintained the knowledge of the true God in his own practice and life, but knew how to make it lasting in his house and race. And in nothing is the memory of the reality and grandeur of his God-fearing and God-blessed life more evidently preserved than in this, that powerful and devout men, even among foreign nations, were compelled to confess that God was with him; and eagerly sought his friendship and blessing.” Gast.

The central conception which gives unity to the religious teaching of the whole body of the Hebrew Scriptures is this: the moral character of God, in personal relation with mankind and with each human being. This great central doctrine (which includes the truths of man’s personality, moral character, and accountableness) is developed by means of human history and experience, especially the experience of sin. Four main lines of illustration combine to unfold this greatest of lessons: 1. Public history, especially as concerned with those calamities which the Scriptures represent as Divine judgments on sin; as the Deluge, the destruction of Sodom, the overthrow of Pharaoh, the punishment of the rebellious Israelites, the extermination of the depraved idolaters of Canaan, the Babylonish captivity, the overthrow of Babylon. 2. Symbolic worship and priestly mediation. 3. Prophetic ministry, interpreting God’s law, will, truth, and promises. 4. Personal experience, vividly illustrating, on the one hand, the care and guidance of God’s providence and leading and teaching of his Spirit, bestowed on those who fear him; on the other hand, the life of faith, penitence, prayer, and loving obedience to God. In this test method the teaching of the three other methods is brought to a practical focus. It may be summed up in the words in which the most sorrowful of the prophets, in the most mournful book of Scripture, utters his peaceful faith: “The Loud is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him” (Lam. 3: 25). E. R. Conder.

The period covered by the central books of the Pentateuch is, in many respects, the most important in Old Testament history, not only so far as regards Israel, but the Church at all times. Opening with centuries of silence and seeming Divine forgetfulness during the bondage of Egypt, the pride and power of Pharaoh are suddenly broken by a series of miracles, culminating in the deliverance of Israel and the destruction of Egypt’s host. In that Paschal night and under the blood-sprinkling, Israel as a nation is born of God, and the redeemed people are then led forth to be consecrated at the Mount by ordinances, laws, and judgments. Then we are shown the manner in which Jehovah deals with his people, both in judgment and in mercy, till at the last he safely brings them to the promised inheritance. In all this we see not only the history of the ancient people of God, but also a grand type of the redemption and the sanctification of the Church. Further, this narrative exhibits the foundation of the Church in the Covenant of God, and also the principles of Jehovah’s government for all time. For however great the difference in the development, the essence and character of the covenant of grace are ever the same. The Old and New Testaments are essentially one—not two covenants, but one, gradually unfolding into full perfectness, “Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone” of the foundation which is alike that of the apostles and prophets. A. E.

The Pentateuch is full of God. The Deity overflows the wondrous writing. God is so near his creatures he speaks to them face to face; he is familiar with them, though always retaining the augustness of his Deity, and never relaxing the majesty proper to his being and duration; he comes down to earth, walks upon it, talks to men, tells them what his will is, elects them to service, enriches them with promises, points out their respective destinies. In the Pentateuch God is a God nigh at hand, and not afar off. . . . Without the Pentateuch Christ as revealed in the Gospels would have been impossible, and without Christ the Pentateuch would have been impossible. I find no great event in the Pentateuch that is not for some purpose of argument or illustration used by Christ himself or by his disciples and apostles in the interests of what is known as evangelical truth. It lies within easy proof that Christ is the text of the Old Testament, and that the Old Testament is the text of Christ. What use is made in the New Testament of the creation of the universe, the faith of Abraham, the rain of manna, the lifting up of the serpent, and the tabernacle of witness! The sublime apology of Stephen epitomizes the Old Testament, and the Epistle to the Hebrews could not have been written but for the ritual of Exodus and Leviticus. In its purely moral tone the Old Testament is of kindred quality with the New. J. P.

Progress of Doctrine Throughout.

There is a growth in doctrine visible throughout the Word of God. Moses did not have so full an idea of God’s purpose as did James. As Bernard well says, “In the Old Testament the progress is protracted, interrupted, often languid, sometimes so dubious as to seem like retrogression. Yet through it all the doctrine grows, and the revelation draws nearer the great disclosure. Then there is entire suspension. We turn the vacant page which represents the silence of four hundred years—and we are in the New Testament. Now again there is progress, but rapid and unbroken. Our steps before were centuries, now they are but years.” E. R. Pope.—All intelligent students of the Bible are aware that this book represents a long process of revelation. The revelation begins with a few primal germs of truth embodied in forms which were adapted to the earlier stages of religious training. In one aspect of it, this revelation is a Divine process of education in which men are taught more and more concerning God and their relations to him. It is, therefore, a revelation of God as well as from God. There is in this process a continual advance from the less to the more complete. Larger truth comes as man’s capacity to receive it is trained and developed. The motives which are at first urged for right-doing are such as are associated with fear of penalty and with temporal rewards.

Duty is enforced with higher motives as rapidly as the process of training permits, but the loftiest plane is fully reached only in Christianity. While, therefore, we cannot claim for Old Testament ethics the same perfect ideals and loftiest motives with which duty is enforced under Christianity, we are to remember that the Old Testament system enfolded the same principles, and that it was constantly looking and working toward their highest statement and applications. Many of the moral difficulties which the Old Testament presents would be much lessened if we viewed them in the light of their time. Such as are integral parts of the system find explanation on the principle of progressive revelation, which involves a process extending from the less to the more complete. The perfect ideals and precepts of Christianity would have been useless in that rude, early time. The people could not have understood them, and hence could not have been greatly helped by them. God adapts his training to the conditions of his pupils, and gives them such moral lessons as they can receive, but always heightens the character of the instruction as those under training become able to receive it. But many of the moral difficulties are not parts of the system at all. The sins of Jacob or of David, the imprecations of David on his enemies, are no more a part of Old Testament ethics than the sins of Judas and Peter are a part of Christianity. The most that can be said of such defects of character is, that they reflect the low morality of the age, and are, so far, contrary to the central principles of the system. He who comes to the study of the Old Testament with candid historic sense will find it a book of new meanings and value. Stevens.

Limits of Legitimate Criticism.

An investigation of the Scriptures is legitimate and right only when it takes place within the limits prescribed by Scriptures themselves. For instance, the Old Testament claims to be a revelation from God, and the history of a revelation. On every page is unmistakably imprinted the fact that these books are to be considered as a truthful record of the manner in which God was preparing salvation for man, and man for salvation. The golden thread running through the whole collection of books is the development of the kingdom of God on earth, among his chosen people, and under the special guidance of Jehovah, through miracles and wonders, down to the time when the Word should become flesh. Any biblical research that runs counter to these principles, by this very fact excludes itself from the domain of legitimate biblical science. It does not investigate these books from the standpoint and within the lines which they themselves prescribe as the all essential in an honest reproduction of their contents. When Kuenen, then, starts out with the proposition as his “standpoint,” that the religion of Israel is one in kind with the other religions of the East, “nothing less, but also nothing more,” he steps out of the boundaries of legitimate biblical science. He draws the controlling data in his research not from the Bible itself, but from a philosophical and naturalistic hypothesis deduced from non-biblical sources. His philosophy contradicts the very fundamentals of legitimate Bible study, and as a system his investigations can give no practical help to a correct biblical science. When Baur, the father of the Tübingen school of New Testament reconstructionists, says that miracles must be excluded in the very outstart in investigating the New Testament, since miracles interfere with the true philosophical conception of history, he thereby deserts the domain of biblical science, denying a priori the very distinguishing feature which, according to these records, must result from an honest study of the Word.

A further limitation is the teaching of Christ. If Christ has spoken clearly on any point whatever, then the matter is settled for a Christian student. We have no patience with New Testament rationalism that seeks to come to the assistance of Old Testament rationalism by analyzing either the New Testament records or the Saviour of the New Testament into unreliable sources of information. Literary criticism has never undertaken a more sorry work than to attempt to undermine the historical character of the gospels or of the account there given of the Saviour’s work and words. When then, Christ, and with him the whole New Testament, declares that the Old Testament is the revealed Word of God; that the early records there are fact, and not fiction, and, least of all, the fabrication of wily priests; that the theological ideas and ethical principles of the Old Testament are substantially those accepted by the evangelical church in general — thereby limitations are drawn within which legitimate biblical science must move and have its being. If it produces results that transgress these limits, then it has worked with principles and methods drawn from sources foreign to the Bible itself. But within these limits there can be in many points a difference between Christian scholars equally reverent and equally anxious to learn the truth.

the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Schodde.

Theophany the Source of Miracle and Prophecy.

The Christian evidences from the Bible may be summed up under the three heads—Theophany, Miracle, and Prophecy. The Old Testament is full of theophanies, and in the New Testament there are many Christophanies and pneumatophanies. These manifestations of God in the forms of space and time and in the sphere of physical nature are of vast importance in the unfolding of Divine revelation. These are the centres from which miracles and prophecies flow. If there were such theophanies or Divine manifestations in the successive stages of Divine revelation, then we should expect miracles in the physical world and prophecy in the world of man. If Jesus Christ is God manifest in the flesh, then prophecy and miracles are exactly what we should expect so long as He abode in this world in the flesh. If the Holy Spirit was given to the apostles on the day of Pentecost, and He was present with the churches of the apostles in the peculiar manner of external manifestations of pneumatophany such as are described in the New Testament, we are not surprised at the occurrence of miracle working and prophecy during that period; and it seems to be the most natural thing in the world that when these Divine manifestations ceased miracle working and prophecy ceased with them. If, then, on the one side, recent criticisms have weakened the independent value of the evidences from miracles and prediction, they have, on the other side, given something vastly better in their place. They have called the attention to the presence of God with his people in external manifestations of theophany to guide the advancing stages of the history of redemption. Here is the citadel of our religion, to which all its lines of evidence converge, the centre of the entire revelation and religion from which prophecy and miracle working issue in all their variety of form. The evidences from miracles and prophecy gain in strength when they are placed in their true relations to the theophany in which the unity of the evidence is found. Briggs.

The Seven Great Periods of Miracle

Miracles disclose a rational order. They appear only in great cycles, with long periods of time between them. The Bible is mainly occupied with other things. It is the ordinary life of man and of nations upon which it casts the light of eternity. It is overwhelmingly historical and descriptive in its temper. And the miracles which it reports cluster around great critical periods of universal historical import, when great men appeared and mighty changes were impending—just the times when extraordinary events would be probable. Miracles are the strokes of God’s hammer within the clock of the world’s history.

They do not occur as regularly, but they do occur as rationally. That they are here, and not there, nor everywhere has a rational explanation; and faith in miracles becomes easier when we discover that they follow a Divine law. The recorded miracles of the Bible fall into six great periods, while prophecy points to a seventh and last as completing the list.

1. The first period of miracles is associated with the creation. The miracles of this period may be reduced to four—the creation of matter, the appearance of vegetation, the beginning of animal life, and the appearance of man. No science has been able to explain the origin of these things. They are all here, and there was a time when they were not here; how, then, came they to be here? Call to your aid, if you will, the nebular hypothesis; assume that an attenuated fire-mist was the original form in which the universe existed; and you have not shaken off the grip of the logic which insists upon a beginning, and grounds that beginning in a miracle of power and wisdom. Whence came that seething fire-mist, and how out of it came the abundant vegetation, the multitudinous forms of animal life, and the reason of man? “There is no spontaneous generation” is the uniform and emphatic testimony of science; “there is no development of plant into animal, nor of the brute into man,” is the universal verdict of scientific induction. The man who is not carried away by his prejudices must confess that in accounting for the origin of the world, a miracle of Divine power is the only rational explanation.

2. The second period of miracles brings us to the time of Noah. For more than sixteen hundred years the life of the world runs in its ordinary channels. Men marry, and found communities, and engage in agriculture and arts—while only their wickedness is colossal and defiant. A hundred and twenty years of preaching by Noah does not result in a single conversion. Slowly but steadily good men were crowded to the wall, until atheism was entrenched and immorality was universal and shameless. Only one miracle breaks the awful monotony, and that was Enoch’s translation, a reasonable tribute to singular righteousness, but one which fell unheeded upon the ears of men. At last, when the cup of iniquity was full, the stroke of judgment fell in the Deluge; and then, lest the former impiety should be repeated, the Confusion of Tongues scattered the race over the face of the earth. It was an extraordinary crisis, and called for extraordinary measures. The times were such as to make the miracle reasonable.

3. The third period of miracles brings us to the time of Moses. And here again we have an intervening period of nearly nine hundred years, during which the world’s life is represented as moving in its ordinary channels. Cities are built, empires are founded, the sciences and the arts are cultivated. But the moral life of man shows no improvement. The foulest idolatries are practised. The time has come for a new departure, one of the highest significance to man—the election and isolation of a nation, whose mission it should be to recall the world from idolatry and immorality. These are the two invaluable legacies of Israel to the world—the doctrine of one living God and the Decalogue as the rule of man’s life. Nearly thirty miracles are recorded in connection with that great movement in history which resulted in the deliverance of the twelve tribes from the tyranny of Egypt and their establishment in Palestine. It is not too much to say that the fate of the world was trembling in the balances, and this gives to the recorded miracles their rational justification.

4. And now, again, the miraculous wave recedes, and the world’s life, that of the Jews included, moves in the ordinary channels for nearly six hundred years. We read of wars and invasions, of the growing moral corruption that pervaded the people, until only a few remained true to God, and these so quiet and scattered that they were unknown to Elijah. Nearly twenty miracles are associated with his life and that of his successor, Elisha. Israel had touched the lowest point of its immorality, and had become the scorn of the heathen. Here, again, it is clear that the moral needs of the time justified the emergence of God’s power and protest in miracles of judgment and mercy.

5. Again the tide recedes, and nothing remarkable confronts us in the world’s history for nearly three hundred and fifty years, until Jerusalem is destroyed by the proud King of Babylon. We come to the time of Daniel, with its two great miracles of the preservation of his three friends from the furnace of fire and his own deliverance from the lion’s den, and with its bold and hopeful prophecies of the kingdom of God. If ever idolatry was defiant, it was when the children of Abraham were captives in Babylonia. Nebuchadnezzar deemed himself God, and ordered men to worship his image; and the miracles appear as the Divine judgment on the audacious blasphemy. Was there not propriety in these signal deliverances?

6. And now, once more, the miracles disappear, to emerge only after nearly six hundred years, when Jesus Christ appears at the greatest critical period of the world’s history, and to inaugurate the final dispensation in the kingdom of God. Nearly sixty miracles belong to this period, more than all the preceding periods together, including the four great miracles of the creation. Does not that fact clearly show that miracles are the signs of an extraordinary crisis in human affairs? They appear only in company with such men as Moses, Elijah, Daniel, and Christ, and at periods in human history that must be recognized as turning-points.

7. And so, once more, when the end shall come, its advent is to be ushered in by the great miracles of judgment and resurrection. Meanwhile, the world returns to what we call its ordinary life, but which is no less providential and Divine in its guidance than the periods of miraculous action, and into which has gone, as iron into the blood, the precipitate of all miraculous action from the very beginning.

And, now, what does this review teach us about the place that miracles have in human history? Two things.

(1) First it is clear that miracles are connected with great moral crises in the affairs of the world. The extraordinary event is associated with the extraordinary time of its occurrence; and the more critical the period, the more numerous, varied, and impressive are the miracles. A rough estimate shows twenty-seven miracles in the time of Moses, eighteen miracles in the time of Elijah, and fifty-three miracles in the time of Christ; and excepting the two great miracles of the Flood, and the two that belong to the time of Daniel, I cannot recall more than half a dozen that are not connected with these decisive periods in God’s discipline of man. The record plainly shows that there is a law of miracles, a reason for their occasional and brief appearance, with long periods of time intervening. They meet us only when the moral needs of the hour justifies their appearance.

(2) In the second place, the miracles of the Bible enter as permanent factors into the subsequent life of the world. They are associated with the birth of permanent institutions. They are the signal-guns of great events, of everwidening reach and power. They are most numerous and impressive in the two great periods of Moses and of Christ, the giving of the Law and of the Gospel, the creation of the Jewish commonwealth, and the founding of the Christian Church. However the Law was given, and in whatever way the twelve tribes came to possess the Holy Land, the Jew with the Decalogue in his hand has given law to the world. The miracles of the Exodus and the Conquest are associated with a moral movement, whose course is still widening and deepening.

New Testament Definition of a Miracle.

Miracles are never referred to in the gospels as merely wonders; but always by the double phrases, “wonders and signs,” or “signs and wonders”—that is, the astonishment is traced to a rational ground. The miracle is not a trick of mere power, but an indication of what he is who works it, or in whose name it is wrought. It is seen to be in perfect harmony with his character and ministry. It is a sign, rather than a credential. It neither proves that Jesus Christ was a holy man, nor does it prove his doctrine to have been Divine; it is simply such an act as may reasonably be expected from what he is and what he came to do. Deeds of Divine power must attend one who is himself God or who acts in God’s name; deeds of Divine mercy must characterize the ministry of one who came to save men from sin and death. If he has authority to forgive sin, he must have power to heal the paralytic; if he can raise all the dead at the last day, he must have power over the grave now. The miracle is a sign. So, again, the miracles of our Lord are called “powers,” as growing out of personal energies that are inseparable from his own nature. They are the expressions of a Divine action. They are not, therefore, to be studied as isolated and strange occurrences defying explanation. They are parts of a living system. They have their place in a Divine order. They can be explained—that is, they have a rational ground and a moral intention. They are worthy of God and of his prophet.

Ignoring now all arbitrary or a priori definitions, and confining ourselves to the New Testament description, three things plainly appear:

First, in its outward form, as appealing to the senses, a miracle is a deed that produces and perpetuates astonishment. It is a present and perpetual wonder. The remarkable element does not wear away upon closer inspection or upon repetition. A miracle, then, is a present and perpetual wonder.

But every effect must have a cause. This leads to the second fact, that in a miracle we have the forth-putting and the expression of the personal power of God. The existence of God is the primary and perpetual wonder. You can comprehend neither his eternity nor his infinitude. The senses do not disclose him. And yet what you see compels you to recognize his presence and power. The visible things proclaim his invisible Godhead. There are the stars, here is the globe, and here are you, all alike bearing the stamp of limited existence; whence came they all? It is not the Bible alone that affirms a beginning; science affirms that matter has all the properties of a manufactured article; and that the constitution and course of the universe point to a beginning, as they suggest a future dissolution; while reason finds it impossible to rest in any other conclusion than that mind preceded matter, and that only the Living God can be self-existent, uncreated, and eternal. An eternal nothing is inconceivable; an eternal evolution or revolution is an absurdity and a contradiction; daring as the opening sentence of the Apostles’ Creed is, it is the audacity of reason as well as the loftiest expression of faith—“I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth.” Here the whole controversy hinges; it is the question between God and no God, between atheism and theism. The debate on miracles pushed to its inner court concerns the existence of God, of his eternal and independent Being. If there is a God, he can show himself by deed and by word; he cannot be supposed to have deliberately and eternally fettered himself. The miracle, as a deed of Divine power, is not only possible, but probable and rational, so long as God is not regarded as practically non-existent. And he who rejects on a priori grounds the miracle of power, must also deny inspiration, which is the miracle of God’s wisdom, and deny prayer, which is the miracle of fellowship, and deny providence, which is the miracle of government, and deny the Incarnation and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, which are the living miracles of redemption. Posit the supernatural anywhere, and you must affirm it everywhere; deny it in any sphere, and you must deny it in all spheres. Assuming, then, the Divine existence, miracles have their rational explanation. They are possible, probable, and necessary. Their occurrence becomes a question of evidence and of impartial criticism.

And this brings me to the third element in the New Testament definition of a miracle, that it is such a forth-putting of the power of

God as to be a sign of him. It is not only a wonder indicating his power, but a mirror reflecting his character. It must be worthy of him, and answer some Divine purpose. The Bible, so far from encouraging credulity, insists that no wonderful account shall be believed, that no miracle shall be recognized, unless it appear as worthy of God and as answering a Divinely wise and beneficent purpose. The possibility of miracles follows from the existence of God; the reality of the miracle must be determined not by evidence alone, but by its agreement with the character and purpose of God. Here is the legitimate province of criticism; here is the decisive test between a true and a false miracle. Faith in God compels to faith in miracle; but faith in God also compels me to scrutinize any and every alleged miracle, and its recognition is obligatory only to the degree of its agreement with the revealed character and purposes of God.

The New Testament thus defines a miracle as a deed of present and perpetual wonder, accounted for by the forth-putting of God’s personal power, and as worthy of the Divine character and in agreement with his revealed purposes. Nor do I see how we can improve upon this definition. The difficulties of the problem emerge when we come to state how this forth-putting of God’s personal power is related to what we call the order of nature—which is strictly the order of nature as we know it. Of this order, a miracle has sometimes been said to be a violation or suspension; and then the idea of order has been pitted against the miracle. But the difficulties here are purely speculative and imaginary. It is not self-evident that miracles involve the violation or suspension of law, any more than the force of gravity is suspended when I lift my hand. It is begging the question to say that miracles violate order; for if they are signs, they bring to view that higher and inclusive order of which observation only discloses a very small part. The miracle, then, has its rational ground in the existence of God, who need not be supposed to violate or suspend any natural law or order in working it; while the grip of a miracle is in its moral quality, in its inherent propriety, and in the disclosure which it makes of God’s essential glory.

Evidential Value of the Miracle.

Miracles have an evidential value, but they are neither the only nor even the highest proofs of a Divine revelation. The traditional estimate has made too much of them. The Divine authority of the Bible has been made to rest upon them. The miracle has been held to prove the doctrine, completely reversing the biblical order in which the doctrine is made to test the miracle. Christ emphatically declares that they are not the ground on which our faith in him should rest. Philip was kindly but sharply rebuked for having been so long with him, yet asking for a sign. It was the rebuke of a grieved and patient heart which craved faith in itself, faith inspired by its essential goodness and greatness. Christ deprecates a return to any lower ground. We are not to believe in him because he wrought miracles; we are to believe in the miracles because we believe in him, radiant in his person and work with a Divine glory. Then followed that startling declaration, that wonderful as his own works had been, greater deeds should be wrought by those that believed on him.

From this it follows, in the second place, that a higher evidential value must be assigned to the historical triumphs of the Gospel than to the recorded miracles. What Christianity has done for man is proof of a higher order than any single miracle, than all miracles together. Next to what Jesus Christ is in himself is the power with which his message has stirred the hearts of men and has leavened the life of the world. And yet, in the third place, the miracles had their place. They were necessary, for had they not accompanied his personal presence, his rejection and crucifixion by the religious leaders of his day would not have been inexcusable. He made unusual claims. But unusual claims demand unusual evidences, and had these not been forthcoming, the repudiation of the claimant would have been reasonable. But every possible cavil was promptly and fully met, and the whole ministry of our Lord made it clear that the men who rejected him were wickedly blind, hating both him and his Father.

The miracles of a bad man are to be unhesitatingly rejected as false and misleading, whether we can explain them or not; just as we reject the seeming miracles of the magician who imitated Moses. And the miracles accompanying immoral teaching are to be rejected as false, because the doctrine proves the real miracle, and not the miracle the doctrine. That cuts the ground from underneath all the pretensions of modern spiritualism. The miracles are false because the doctrine is false. Goodness and truth are the great things to be kept steadily in view, and these shine in their own light; and where these are absent we should emphatically decline lending our ears. First look at the prophets of the system, ask what kind of lives they live, and what are their teachings, and upon that evidence decide their claim of miraculous power. This is the common-sense and Christian course, and it makes short work of mediæval and modern miracles. The Deceiver’s mark is on them all. Our Lord and his apostles solemnly warn us against lying signs and wonders. The true miracle culminated in the ministry of Jesus Christ, and is to be looked for only in connection with his final advent to judgment. The intervening period is represented as one in which the Christian Church is to depend upon the ministry of the Holy Spirit, until by the preaching of the Gospel the world shall have become prepared for the heavenly bridal. Behrends.

Points bearing upon Mosaic Authorship.

That the wisdom of the Egyptians, in which Moses was instructed, included a high conception of God and a high standard of ethics, seems to be indicated by the monuments of Egypt, as interpreted by some of the most eminent scholars in Egyptology. M. Rougé affirmed, as the conclusion of his thorough study of this subject, that a pure monotheistic religion was the primitive religion of Egypt, and that even through the forms of polytheism and idolatry which supervened on this early faith, there was always to be recognized a consciousness of the primal truth. “The belief in the unity of the Supreme God, and in his attributes of Creator and Lawgiver of man, whom he has endowed with an immortal soul—these,” he says, “are the primitive notions, enchaffed, like indestructible diamonds, in the midst of the mythological superfetations accumulated in the centuries which have passed over that ancient civilization.” And Renouf, who does not altogether agree with Rougé, declares that from neither Greek nor Roman literature can there be quoted such passages as are found in the Egyptian literature, in recognition of the highest Christian conception of the Supreme Self-Existent God.

Of the ethical teaching of the religious literature of ancient Egypt, M. Chabas says: “None of the Christian virtues is forgotten in it; piety, charity, gentleness, self-command in word and action, chastity, the protection of the weak, benevolence toward the humble, deference to superiors, respect for property in its minutest details, . . . all is expressed there, and in extremely good language.” Renouf, in citing this testimony of Chabas, says: “In confirmation of this, I will add that the translators of the

Bible and of the early Christian literature, who were so often compelled to retain Greek words, for which they could discover no Egyptian equivalent, found the native vocabulary amply sufficient for the expression of the most delicate notions of Christian ethics.” It is evident that in Egypt there were better external advantages for training Moses in that knowledge which would fit him to be the recipient of God’s revelation, in his new sphere as Israel’s lawgiver, than were to be found elsewhere on the face of the whole earth, in the days of Moses. S. S. T.

It is admitted, even by the extremest sceptics, that the genuineness of the work carries with it the authenticity of the narrative, at least, in all its main particulars. “It would most unquestionably,” says Strauss, “be an argument of decisive weight in favor of the credibility of the biblical history, could it indeed be shown that it was written by eye-witnesses.” “Moses, being the leader of the Israelites on their departure from Egypt, would undoubtedly give a faithful history of the occurrences, unless” (which is not pretended) “he designed to deceive.” And further, “Moses, if his intimate connection with Deity described in these books” (i.e., the last four) “be historically true, was likewise eminently qualified, by virtue of such connection, to produce a credible history of the earlier periods.” If Moses indeed wrote the account which we possess of the Exodus and of the wanderings in the wilderness, and if, having written it, he delivered it to those who knew the events as well as he, the conditions which secure the highest degree of historical credibility, so far, at least, as regards the events of the last four books, are obtained. We have for them the direct witness of a contemporary writer—not an actor only, but the leader in the transactions which he relates—honest evidently, for he records his own sins and defects and the transgressions and sufferings of his people; and honest necessarily, for he writes of events which were public and known to all—we have a work which, by the laws of historical criticism, is thus for historical purposes just as reliable as Cæsar’s Commentaries or Xenophon’s “Retreat of the Ten Thousand”—we have that rare literary treasure, the autobiography of a great man, engaged in great events, the head of his nation at a most critical period in their annals, who commits to writing as they occur the various events and transactions in which he is engaged, wherever they have a national or public character. Setting aside, therefore, the idea of inspiration, we possess in the last four books of the Pentateuch as reliable an account of the Exodus of the Jews and their subsequent wanderings as we do, in the works of Cæsar and Xenophon, of the conquest of Britain or of the events which preceded and followed the battle of Cunaxa. G. R.

The faith of the Israelite rested on the facts of Abraham’s call, the Exodus, the conquest of Canaan. What is supernatural in these facts is so bound up with what is historical, that the two cannot be separated. What confirms our faith in the one confirms our faith in the other. It happens, therefore, very providentially that while certain modern habits of thought are making belief in the supernatural difficult to some minds, criticism and research are tending every year to strengthen the certainty of those historical facts with which the supernatural revelation is inseparably interwoven. Most strikingly has this been the case with the most important of all the Old Testament records, the record of the Exodus. Just when the destructive criticism of unbelievers was trying to prove it all legendary, trying, by a studied exaggeration of every apparent difficulty, to shake our faith in it, it pleased God to open up to us the buried monuments of that kindred nation with which Israel at this period was so closely connected. Slowly out of these monuments we are reconstructing Egypt’s history. We may safely assert that the Egypt portrayed on these stones and papyrus-scrolls is precisely the Egypt implied and required by the Mosaic narrative. J. P. N.

The linguistic, geographic, and ethnologic notices contained in the books of Moses are of the most veracious character, stamping the whole narration with an unmistakable air of authenticity. And the fact that each accession to our knowledge of the ancient times helps to remove difficulties and multiplies fresh illustrations of the Mosaic narrative, affords to candid minds an argument for the historic truth of the narrative, the force of which can scarcely be overestimated. All tends to show that we possess in the Pentateuch not only the most authentic account of ancient times that has come down to us, but a history absolutely and in every respect true. All tends to assure us that in this marvellous volume we have no “cunningly devised fable,” but a “treasure of wisdom and knowledge”—as important to the historical inquirer as to the theologian. There may be obscurities; there may be occasionally, in names and numbers, accidental corruptions of the text; there may be a few interpolations—glosses which have crept in from the margin; but upon the whole it must be pronounced that we have in the Pentateuch a genuine and authentic work, and one which—even were it not inspired—would be, for the times and countries whereof it treats, the leading and paramount authority.

It is “Moses” who is still “read in the synagogues every Sabbath day,” and they who “resist” him, by impugning his veracity, like Jannes and Jambres of old, “resist the truth.” G. R. (1859).

The New Testament proves the historical character of the narratives of the Pentateuch, the fact that Moses was the great Lævgiver and Prophet, the fundamental position of the Mosaic legislation to the Old Testament, and, above all, the Divine authority of the Pentateuch; and those who antagonize these things come in collision with Jesus and the apostles; but the Mosaic authorship of the whole Pentateuch, so far as the New Testament is concerned, is not decided for us. Any theory of its composition that recognizes Mosaic authorship of the chief parts of it, and the essential features of its legislation as Mosaic, is in accord with the New Testament. Briggs.

A brief compendious statement of the considerations which oppose a late date for the Pentateuch and the arguments in support of such a date. (1) The total lack of external evidence in its favor. All that we know from sacred or secular sources is on the side of the traditionary view. (2) The acknowledged inconsistencies that remain. If the matter of the Hexateuch has been so often revised as the prevailing theory declares, how comes it to pass that so many seeming contradictions continue to be found, so many divergencies in tone, in spirit, in conception? On the ordinary view these are to be expected, but by no means on the other. (3) It is vain to say that Moses was not cultivated enough to write the books attributed to him, for he was trained in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, who, in his day, had, as we know, an abundant and varied literature. (4) There is no reason to dispute the existence of a priesthood in his day, since it is clear that there was a large priestly caste in Egypt, and it is in the last degree improbable that a Hebrew priesthood should wait a thousand years, or even the half of that period, for a ritual. (5) The theory that denies everything but a few fragments to the Mosaic period, and relegates all psalms and proverbs to a post exilian date, leaves a long period of history without any literature, and offers no basis for the splendid outburst of prophecy which illumined the eighth century before Christ. (6) The principle that the non-observance of a law proves its non-existence is wholly fallacious. (7) The language of the Hexateuch is inconsistent with a late origin. Its parts differ among themselves, but in nothing like the degree in which they differ from the Hebrew of the Persian era. (8) The local allusions throughout are to Egypt; how could this possibly be if these writings received their last reduction from persons all whose surroundings were Palestinian or Babylonian? (9) There are continual references to a life in the wilderness, a journeying through the desert; what could suggest these to men whose whole lives were passed in fertile and cultivated regions? (10) The doctrinal contents of the Hexateuch, being simple and elementary, are in harmony with the traditionary date and not the imaginary one. (11) The modern theory abounds in license. Because King Josiah found “the book of the Law” in the temple, it is insisted, without the shadow of reason, that this book was Deuteronomy, which had just been written, and had been secreted in order that it might be found! Ezekiel’s splendid idealization of the Church of the future is, in defiance of all taste and judgment, converted from a magnificent symbolic prophecy into the prosaic outline of a new ritual then for the first time introduced! (12) The Jewish Rabbis enumerate five things wanting in the second temple which were found in the first (the Shekinah, the ark and mercy-seat, the spirit of prophecy, the Urim and Thummim, and the fire on the altar); but if these were inventions of Ezra and his associates, what possible motive did they have for constructing a style of worship which would only make more evident the baldness of their own services? (13) In some cases the theory rests upon the philosophical postulate that religion in any case is only a natural development, the supernatural being impossible and incredible; this is certainly the view of Kuenen and Wellhausen; yet no man who holds it can possibly be a fair interpreter of Scripture. (14) These latter writers not only exclude the Divine factors from the history of Israel, but assert the existence of fictions in that history, not merely in single, separate instances, but passim, wherever a patch was needed to give the story an air of authority. (15) The analysis of the documents is based often upon very subtle criteria, is frequently mechanical, and again makes assumptions that are purely conjectural; hence there is serious difficulty in accepting its conclusions when they are at war with the statements of the history itself. (16) The existence of different documents is no argument against the Mosaic authorship, for the man of

God may have compiled his first book from antecedent data, and in those that followed may have reduced into form what had previously been put in writing by others under his direction. Conjecture is just as allowable in favor of Moses as it is against him. (17) So in regard to the Book of Joshua, the natural complement of the Pentateuch, there is nothing strained or unnatural in the opinion that some of the men trained under the guidance of the great Law-giver made this record. (18) The testimony of the New Testament is clear and strong as to the Mosaic authorship. Our Lord said (John 5:46) of Moses, “He wrote of me,” and in the next verse speaks of “his writings.” No principle of accommodation will explain this language. In Mark 12:26 he asked, “Have ye not read in the Book of Moses?” So the Apostle Peter said (Acts 3:22), “Moses indeed said: A prophet shall the Lord God raise up unto you.” And the Apostle Paul cites the Pentateuch in the terms, “It is written in the law of Moses,” and again, “Moses saith,” and again, “Moses describeth the righteousness that is of the Law” (1 Cor. 9:9; Rom. 10:19; 10:5). It does not seem possible to understand these references as meaning anything else than the accepted view of that age that Moses was the author of the books that bear his name. Chambers.

In closing my remarks on the books of Moses, I make brief mention of a few other points in favor of their veracity, several of which also bespeak undesignedness in the narrative more or less. (1) There is a minuteness in the details of the Mosaic writings which argues their truth; for it often argues the eye-witness, as in the adventures of the wilderness, and often seems intended to supply directions to the artificer, as in the construction of the Tabernacle. (2) There are touches of nature in the narrative which argue its truth, for it is not easy to regard them otherwise than as strokes from the life—as where “the mixed multitude,” whether half-casts or Egyptians, are the first to sigh for the cucumbers and melons of Egypt, and to spread discontent through the camp; as the miserable exculpation of himself which Aaron attempts, with all the cowardice of conscious guilt—“I cast into the fire, and there came out this calf,” the fire, to be sure, being in the fault. (3) There are certain little inconveniences represented as turning up unexpectedly that argue truth in the story; for they are just such accidents as are characteristic of the working of a new system and untried machinery. What is to be done with the man who is found gathering sticks on the Sabbath day? (Could an impostor have devised such a trifle?) How the inheritance of the daughters of Zelophehad is to be disposed of, there being no heir-male. Either of them inconsiderable matters in themselves, but both giving occasion to very important laws—the one touching life, and the other property. (4) There is a simplicity in the manner of Moses when telling his tale which argues its truth—no parade of language, no pomp of circumstance even in his miracles—a modesty and dignity throughout all. Let us but compare him in any trying scene with Josephus—his description, for instance, of the passage through the Red Sea, of the murmuring of the Israelites, and the supply of quails and manna, with the same as given by the Jewish historian, or rhetorician, we might rather say—and the force of the observation will be felt. (5) There is a candor in the treatment of his subject by Moses which argues his truth; as when he tells of his own want of eloquence, which unfitted him for a leader; his own want of faith, which prevented him from entering the promised land; the idolatry of Aaron his brother; the profaneness of Nadab and Abihu, his nephews; the disaffection and punishment of Miriam, his sister. (6) There is a disinterestedness in his conduct which argues him to be a man of truth; for though he had sons, he apparently takes no measures during his life to give them offices of trust or profit; and at his death he appoints as his successor one who had no claims upon him, either of alliance, of clanship, or of blood. (7) There are certain prophetical passages in the writings of Moses which argue their truth, as several respecting the future Messiah, and the very sublime and literal one respecting the final fall of Jerusalem. (8) Above all, there is a comparative parity in the theology and morality of the Pentateuch, which argues not only its truth, but its high original; for how else are we to account for a system like that of Moses, in such an age and among such a people; that the doctrine of the unity, the self-existence, the providence, the perfections of the great God of heaven and earth, should thus have blazed forth (how far more brightly than even in the vaunted schools of Athens at its most refined era!) from the midst of a nation, of themselves ever plunging into gross and grovelling idolatry; and that principles of social duty, of benevolence, and of self-restraint, extending even to the thoughts of the heart, should have been the produce of an age which the very provisions of the Levitical Law itself show to have been full of savage and licentious abominations? Such are some of the internal evidences for the veracity of the books of Moses.

(9) Then the situation in which the Jews actually found themselves placed, as a matter of fact, is no slight argument for the truth of the Mosaic accounts; reminded, as they were, by certain memorials observed from year to year, of the great events of their early history, just as they are recorded in the writings of Moses—memorials universally recognized both in their object and in their authority. The Passover, for instance, celebrated by all—no man doubting its meaning, no man in all Israel assigning to it any other origin than one—viz., that of being a contemporary monument of a miracle displayed in favor of the people of Israel—by right of which credentials, and no other, it summoned from all quarters of the world, at great cost and inconvenience and danger, the dispersed Jews—none disputing the obligation to obey the summons.

(10) Then the heroic devotion with which the Israelites continued to regard the Law, even long after they had ceased to cultivate the better part of it, even when that very Law only served to condemn its worshippers, so that they would offer themselves up by thousands with their children and wives as martyrs to the honor of their temple, in which no image, even of an emperor who could scourge them with scorpions for their disobedience, should be suffered to stand and they live—so that rather than violate the sanctity of the Sabbath day the bravest men in arms would lay down their lives as tamely as sheep, and allow themselves to be burned in the holes where they had taken refuge from their cruel and cowardly pursuers. All this points to their Law as having been at first promulgated under circumstances too awful to be forgotten even after the lapse of ages.

(11) Then, again, the extraordinary degree of national pride with which the Jews boasted themselves to be God’s peculiar people, as if no nation ever was or ever could be so nigh to him; a feeling which the early teachers of Christianity found an insuperable obstacle to the progress of the Gospel among them, and which actually did effect its ultimate rejection—this may well seem to be founded upon a strong traditional sense of uncommon tokens of the Almighty’s regard for them above all other nations of the earth, which they had heard with their ears, or their fathers had declared unto them, even the noble works that he had done in the old time before them. (12) Then, again, the constant craving after “a sign,” which beset them in the latter days of their history, as a lively certificate of the prophet; and not after a sign only, but after such an one as they would themselves prescribe—“What sign shewest thou that we may see and believe? . . . our fathers did eat manna in the desert;” this desire, so frequently expressed, and with which they are so frequently reproached, looks like the relic of an appetite engendered in other times, when they had enjoyed the privilege of more intimate communion with God—it seems the wake of miracles departed.

(13) Lastly, the very onerous nature of the Law—so studiously meddling with all the occupations of life, great and small—this yoke would scarcely have been endured, without the strongest assurance on the part of those who were galled by it of the authority by which it was imposed. For it met them with some restraint or other at every turn. Would they plough? Then it must not be with an ox and an ass. Would they sow? Then must not the seed be mixed. Would they reap? Then must they not reap clean. Would they make bread? Then must they set apart dough enough for the consecrated loaf. Did they find a bird’s nest? Then must they let the old bird fly away. Did they hunt? Then they must shed the blood of their game, and cover it with dust. Did they plant a fruit tree? For three years was the fruit to be uncircumcised. Did they shave their beards? They were not to cut the corners. Did they weave a garment? Then must it be only with threads prescribed. Did they build a house? They must put rails and battlements on the roof. Did they buy an estate? At the year of Jubilee back it must go to its owner. This last in itself and alone a provision which must have made itself felt in the whole structure of the Jewish commonwealth, and have sensibly affected the character of the people; every transfer of land throughout the country having to be regulated in its price according to the remoteness or proximity of the year of release; and the desire of accumulating a species of property usually considered the most inviting of any, counteracted and thwarted at every turn. All these (and how many more of the same kind might be named!) are enactments which it must have required extraordinary influence in the Lawgiver to enjoin, and extraordinary reverence for his powers to perpetuate. Blunt.

The Bible-Work

John George Butler's Bible-Work, published in 1892. Rather than a single commentator's voice, Butler gathered the best comment he could find on every passage and set it side by side, each note signed by whoever wrote it. The result reads as a conversation between scholars and preachers across the …

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Old Testament

GEN EXO LEV NUM DEU JOS JDG RUT 1SA 2SA 1KI 2KI 1CH 2CH EZR NEH EST JOB PSA PRO ECC SNG ISA JER LAM EZK DAN HOS JOL AMO OBA JON MIC NAM HAB ZEP HAG ZEC MAL

New Testament

MAT MRK LUK JHN ACT ROM 1CO 2CO GAL EPH PHP COL 1TH 2TH 1TI 2TI TIT PHM HEB JAS 1PE 2PE 1JN 2JN 3JN JUD REV

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