Ezra, Nehemiah, and the Later Prophets.
Indeed the whole book of Ezekiel is impregnated with the language of the Pentateuch, as has been proved long ago. It is especially remarkable for the use of the figures and language peculiar to the Pentateuch. Thus, the phrase, “Pine away in their iniquity,” Ezek. 4:17; 24:23, 33:10, occurs only here and Lev. 26:39. Again, a favorite expression of Ezekiel's, “Mine eyes shall not spare,” Ezek. 5:11; 7:4, 9; 8:18; 9:5, 10, occurs in the Pentateuch, once in Gen. 45:20 (margin), five times in Deuteronomy, and only once besides in the whole Bible, Isa. 13:18. Another phrase peculiar to Ezekiel and the Pentateuch is, “I will draw out a sword after them.” Compare Ex. 15:9, Lev. 26:33, with Ezek. 5:2, 12; 12:14, and observe in Lev. 26:33, and Ezek. 12:14 that the threat of drawing the sword is in both cases accompanied with “the threat of dispersion,” expressed in the original in the very same words. Again, the phrase “Staff of bread,” occurring in our Prophet, 4:16, 5:16, 14:12, is found only in the Pentateuch, Lev. 26:26. In like manner, the expression “I will set my face,” employed several times by Ezekiel, is (excepting two passages in Jeremiah) found only in the Pentateuch.
There are many other similar points of agreement; but these are sufficient to identify the Law of which Ezekiel speaks with the Pentateuch which we now possess. And it is particularly to be observed, that his references to the Law necessarily imply that the priests, the prophets, and the people all knew the law to which he referred, and received it as an undoubtedly Divine authority, to which they were amenable, by which they were to be judged, and from which there was no appeal. We have therefore unexceptionable testimony that the Pentateuch existed in the captivity, and seven years before the destruction of Jerusalem.
JEREMIAH.
The testimony of Ezekiel is overlapped by that of Jeremiah, who was partly his contemporary and partly his predecessor, whose writings also, with a few exceptions to which it is not necessary now to refer, have stood the test of modern criticism. If Jeremiah knew a Divine law, it must be that known to Ezekiel, and therefore that known to us. That such a law was known to him is certain. He mentions it expressly, and often quotes it. Thus in 9:13 (12) the Lord says, “They have forsaken my law which I set before them;” and, 16:11, “They have not kept my law;” and, 6:19, “They have not hearkened unto my words, nor to my law, but have rejected it;” and again, 32:22, the prophet says, “They have not obeyed thy voice, neither walked in thy law.” But some will perhaps say, as some have said, that of course the law was known to Jeremiah, as in his days the Book of the Law is said to have been found in the Temple; but that, before this book was found, it was unknown, and therefore fabricated by Hilkiah and his fellow-priests, and imposed upon Josiah. The reasoning upon which former skeptics arrived at this conclusion is absurd.
They argue thus: A book was found, or pretended to be found, by the priest, who said, “I have found the Book of the Law,” which never existed, and of course was unknown to the king and the people. And yet, though utterly unknown, it was instantly received by the king and all the people without suspicion or inquiry, and all submitted to the extirpation of the idolatries then practiced, and to the burdens which it imposed; and, according to this unknown book, reformed Church and State. And although they had never before heard of its enactments, they believed that it had been observed by their fathers from the days of Moses. This is plainly impossible. That the king and the court, and many of the people, might have been, and probably were, ignorant of the contents of the Law, is highly probable.
The two preceding reigns had been decidedly hostile to true religion. Manasseh was both a seducer and a persecutor. “He seduced them to do more evil than did the nations whom the Lord destroyed before the children of Israel.” He reared up altars for Baal and Asherah, and worshipped all the host of heaven in the courts of the Lord's house, and filled Jerusalem with innocent blood.
Amon, his successor, walked in all the ways that his father walked in, and served the idols that his father served; and these kings were followed by priests, prophets, and people, as we find Jeremiah complaining, “The priests said not, Where is the Lord?... The pastors also transgressed against me, and the prophets prophesied by Baal. . . The house of Israel is ashamed: they, their kings, their princes, their prophets, saying to a stock, Thou art my father, and to a stone, Thou hast brought me forth” (Jer. 2:8, 26). Even of Jerusalem itself he says, “There is not one that seeketh the truth” (v. 1).
No wonder, then, that they who are so described permitted the Temple to go to ruin, and the copy of the Law, belonging to it—perhaps the very autograph of Moses—to be lost. No wonder if Josiah, with such a father and grandfather, such priests, and such a court, had been ignorant of the denunciations of the Law. Hilkiah, on the contrary, was not astonished He says, “I have found the Book of the Law.” He knew, therefore, that there was such a book, and says, “I have found it:” as Thenius, who is certainly no believer in inspiration, says in his commentary, “The expression, the Book of the Law, shows plainly that the question here is not about something that came to light for the first time, but something that was already known.“
It is true that this commentator does not believe that the book found was our present Pentateuch, but he believes that what was found was not something new, or something never heard of before, but a written law, previously known. He believes that such a written law had existed; just as Hitzig asserts, in his commentary on Jeremiah (p. 60), that a written law had always existed in Judah. But as the Law known to Ezekiel was our present Pentateuch, that known to Jeremiah, partly his contemporary, cannot be different. That it was known to Jeremiah before the finding of the book can be proved by his prophecies delivered at the beginning of his ministry. He began to prophesy in the thirteenth year of Josiah. The Book of the Law was not found until the eighteenth year of that king. Now even Hitzig admits that chapters 2:1-8:17 were written before the eighteenth year, and the second chapter probably in the thirteenth year of Josiah, that is, the first of Jeremiah's ministry.
Both testify the existence of the Law. In Jer. 2:8 it is said, “They that handle the law know me not;” and in 8:8, “How say ye, We are wise, and the law of the Lord is with us?” Before the finding of the book, therefore, “The Law” existed and was called “The Law of the Lord.” These chapters also contain references and quotations which serve to identify it with the present Pentateuch. Thus, chap. 2:6: “Neither said they, Where is the Lord that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, that led us through the wilderness, through a land of deserts and of pits, through a land of drought and of the shadow of death, through a land that no man passed through, and where no man dwelt? And I brought you into a plentiful country, to eat the fruit thereof and the goodness thereof: but when ye entered, ye defiled my land and made mine heritage an abomination.” Here are allusions, either in sense or word, or both, to Deut. 8:15; Num. 14:7, 8; Lev. 18:25-28; Num. 35:33, 34. In ver. 28 the prophet says, “Where are thy gods, that thou hast made thee? let them arise if they can save thee in the time of trouble,” evidently a quotation of Deut. 32:37, 38. Chapter 3:1 is an undoubted reference to Deut. 24:3, 4. Chapter 3:16 refers to a number of places in the Pentateuch, and the chief features in the Mosaic worship: “In those days, saith the Lord, they shall say no more, The ark of the covenant of the Lord; neither shall it come to mind, neither shall they remember it, neither shall they visit it, neither shall that be done any more.”
This tells us that there was a covenant, Ex. 24:7, 8; Deut. 5:2, 3, that there was an “ark of the covenant of the Lord” —the very words found in Num. 10:33, and Deut. 31:26, that the Israelites used to visit it—words to be explained only by the commands, to go up three times in the year, Ex. 23:17; Deut. 16:16. In the days of Jeremiah, before the finding of the book therefore, the whole history of the covenant (that is in fact, of the giving of the Law, all the directions about the ark, the three great feasts) is presupposed, and without the existence of the Pentateuch would be unintelligible. Chap. 4:4, “Circumcise yourselves to the Lord,” is a quotation from Deut. 10:16, and an allusion to Deut. 30:6, and contains a figure found in no other sacred writer. Chap. 5:15, “Lo, I will bring a nation upon you from far, O house of Israel, saith the Lord God.... a nation whose language thou knowest not, neither understandest what they say,” is a quotation from Deut. 28:49; and ver. 17, “they shall eat up their harvest,” &c., from Lev. 26:16, and Deut. 28:31. Again, in chap. 7:6, “Oppress not the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, and shed not innocent blood in this place, neither walk after other gods to your hurt: then will I cause you to dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers,” are unmistakable allusions to Ex. 22:21; Deut. 19:10; 6:14, 15; 4:10; Gen. 15:18; 17:8; 26:3 &c.
The prophecies written subsequently to the finding of the book also contain numerous undoubted allusions to, or quotations from, the Pentateuch. But those written before that time prove abundantly that Jeremiah, like Ezekiel, was well acquainted with the letter and the spirit of that law, which we now know as the Pentateuch. There can therefore be no doubt, that “The Law” of which he speaks as the Law of the Lord, existing at the same time as that known to Ezekiel, must be identical with it, and also with “The Book of the Law” found in the Temple. And thus the existence of the Pentateuch from the days of our Lord to the thirteenth year of Josiah is firmly established. But it was not then invented nor written for the first time; it was not anything new. Jeremiah had known it from his youth, for he was called at an early age. The people knew of it as well as the prophet; and therefore it could not have been invented any very short time preceding that in which Jeremiah began to prophesy. Neither could it have been invented in the days of Amon or Manasseh. Theirs were not days for trying to introduce a new religious system of laws, of which the great object was to extirpate idolatry. And therefore we must pursue our inquiry to the time of Hezekiah.
ISAIAH, MICAH, AMOS, HOSEA.
As “the Book of the Law” existed at the beginning of Josiah's reign, and could not have been forged in the days of Amon or Manasseh, it must have existed in the time of Hezekiah. But it is not necessary to depend on inference in this matter. There are four unimpeachable witnesses of the fact, the prophets Isaiah, Micah, Amos, Hosea, who bring us back beyond the days of Hezekiah to those of Uzziah and Jeroboam the Second. Three of these expressly mention “The Law of the Lord.” Two testify that it was written in a book. All cite the contents of that book sufficiently to identify it with that which we possess. Thus, in Isa. 5:24 we read, “They have cast away the law of the Lord of Hosts;” and again, 30:9 “Children that will not hear the law of the Lord.” Amos says (2:4), “They have despised the law of the Lord”; Hos. 4:6, “Seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God I will also forget thy children;” and again, 8:1, “They have transgressed my covenant, and trespassed against my law.”
These passages assuredly prove without just doubt that there was a law well known to the people, acknowledged as the Law of God, which it was a sin to transgress; and, as appears from the last passage, obligatory in the nature of a covenant. The title, also, appears to have been in these days, “The Law of the Lord,” as in Jer. 8:8. That it was written is testified by Hos. 8:12, “I have written to him the great things of my law, but they were counted as a strange thing.” And therefore Isaiah speaks of it as “The Book,” just as we speak of the Bible. In chap. 29:18, it is said, “In that day shall the deaf hear the words of the book,” which even Gesenius interprets of the Law. His commentary on this verse is worth transcribing.” The deaf and the blind are the hardened and blinded free-thinkers (mentioned verse 9), who shall then leave the darkness in which they had been sitting, and turn to the light of the Law (comp. 2:5). Sepher, The Book, by pre-eminence, is the Book of the Law, like ‘the roll of the Book,' Psa. 40:8, and ‘Books,' Dan. 9:2, the Holy Scriptures. The Arabs also use the expression, 'The Book,' pre-eminently of the Koran, though sometimes of the Holy Scripture of the Jews and Christians.”
Only one Book of the Law could have been called “The Book;” and, therefore, this Book, mentioned by Isaiah as so well-known as to require no further description, must be identical with “the Book of the Law” found in the time of Josiah. But, as we have shown that this Book was our present Pentateuch, it follows that the Pentateuch existed in the days of Hezekiah; indeed, the words of Hos. 8:12 show that it was known in the days of Uzziah and Jeroboam the Second. Even if these prophets had quoted nothing from “The Book,” the identity stands fast; but they have references amply sufficient to satisfy all impartial minds, that they were well acquainted with the Pentateuch as known to us.
In the first place, it is plain that they are acquainted with the history. They know of the sin of Adam “Like Adam, they have transgressed the covenant” (Hos. 6:7): they know of the sentence on the serpent, “They shall lick the dust like the serpent, they shall move out of their holes like creeping things of the earth,” Mic. 7:17. But we have here, not only a reference to Gen. 3:14, but a quotation of certain words found Deut. 32:24. The Hebrew word for “creeping things” occurs only here, in Deut. and in Job 32:6. The references to Sodom and Gomorrah are frequent, Isa. 1:9, 10; 3:9, Amos 4:11, and Hos. 11:8. The promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, are also referred to, Mic. 7:20. Hosea refers to the history of Jacob. “He took his brother by the heel in the womb, and by his strength he had power with God; yea, he had power over the angel and prevailed, he wept and made supplication unto him. He found him in Bethel.” Here are three allusions, to Gen. 25:26; 32:24; and 28:11.
The bringing up out of Egypt, and the wandering in the wilderness, are spoken of in the very language of the Pentateuch; as Mic. 6:4, “I brought thee up out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed thee out of the house of servants; and I sent before thee Moses, Aaron, and Miriam.” Comp. 7:15. Hosea (2:15) says, “She shall sing there, as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of Egypt,” referring both to Exodus, and to the song of Moses and Miriam; then again 11:1, “When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt:” alluding particularly to the language of Ex. 4:22; 23, “Thus saith the Lord, Israel is my son, my firstborn: and I say unto thee, Let my son go, that he may serve me.” Amos (2:10) says, “Also I brought you up from the land of Egypt, and led you forty years through the wilderness, to possess the land of the Amorite.” Besides the Exodus, and the sojourn in the wilderness there is also a reference to Gen. 15:16. Compare also Amos 3:1, and 5:25. Micah (6:5) refers to the history of Balaam.