Jonathan Edwards · 320 of 409

Pentateuch · Part 4

And again: If they had any other book of the law when they first came out of the captivity, it is impossible but that it must be preserved, for they must have a high regard to it as being the same with that sacred book that had been regarded in all former ages as the great and holy rule of their nation, and accordingly kept as most sacred by the priests in the sanctuary of God, in the holy of holies, beside the ark of God. We find the writings of the prophet Jeremiah were preserved, Dan. ix. 2. how much more would they preserve the law of Moses! But the Jews had no books of the law preserved, they have none other now, and have had no other in all ages since; they had no other in Christ’s time, and we have no account of any other in all the accounts we have of the nation, from Christ’s time to the captivity; though in these accounts there be very much said about the book of the law, and though there were many controversies about it from time to time, and innumerable copies of it, and many that made it their business to study, to write, and to teach it, though there were synagogues established through Palestine, and through the world wherever the Jews were dispersed. The custom of synagogues in every city began near the first return from the captivity. See Prideaux, part I. p. 534, &c. Yet there is no mention made in any accounts we have of the Jews of any other book of the law that was among them in any of those times, nor of any knowledge or thought that any of them had that there had ever been any other book of the law in any former times. It is evident that the book of the law that the Jews had in Ezra’s time, was very publicly known among the people, by the great pains that Ezra and others took thoroughly to acquaint them with it, and therefore it would have been impossible to make so great an alteration in that sacred book to which they were taught to pay such a regard, and which was laid up in the holy of holies in the temple, and in their regard to which the people soon after the captivity became, in some respects, even superstitious. I say it would have been impossible to have made so great an alteration in it, that whereas formerly it had only a body of precepts, now it was turned into a large history, with precepts here and there mixed and blended, without some notice being taken of it, and some notable disputes, and controversies, and some remaining traces at least of the alteration, and some remaining knowledge of the former purer volume. It would be endless to reckon up the absurdities of such a supposition.

There were many sects among the Jews in Palestine, having many disputes and differences of opinion about the law of Moses; but there was no such dispute or difference as this, whether this was the genuine book of the law. And not only the Jews in Palestine, but all the Jews through the world, which were so vastly dispersed even in Esther’s time, yet without controversy or any difference of opinion, all acknowledged this same book as the only book of the law, and this was the book of the law that was read in all the synagogues through the world, and was owned by the Samaritans also; (of which more afterwards;) which would have been impossible, if this was so different from that book of the law that the Jews had, and was so publicly known in Ezra’s time. The Sadducees, many of whom were learned men, and boasted of their freedom of thought, and taking liberty to differ from the Jews, and were a kind of infidels, and rejected most other writings that the Jews accounted sacred, yet acknowledged without dispute the book of the Pentateuch, as we now have it, as the genuine book of the law of Moses, and as the record of God. So did the Samaritans, though they hated the Jews, and exceedingly differed from them in other things, and were such enemies to them after the captivity, that they would rather reject a thing for being one of their customs or principles; yet they owned this Pentateuch as the genuine law of Moses, which it is exceeding absurd to suppose they would have done if the book had been new made with all the history foisted in sometime after Ezra; so that undoubtedly this was the book of the law that the Jews owned and made use of, and regarded as the true law of Moses in Ezra’s time.

Now, as to the consequence, if the Pentateuch, as we now have it with its history, was the book that the Jews had and used as the book of the law soon after the captivity, then it will follow that it was also the same book that was their book of the law before the captivity; for if such a great alteration was made in the book of the law, it was either done by Ezra, or by some of the Jews, before he came up to Jerusalem. It was not done by Ezra, for the priests in Jerusalem had the book of the law among them before Ezra came, even when they first came out of the captivity, as appears from Hag. ii. 11, 12, 13. “Thus saith the Lord of hosts, Ask now the priests concerning the law, saying, If one bear holy flesh in the skirt of his garment, and with his skirt do touch bread, or pottage, or wine, or oil, or any meat, shall it be holy? And the priests answered and said, No. Then said Haggai, If one that is unclean by a dead body touch any of these, shall it be unclean? And the priests answered and said, It shall be unclean.” See also Ezra ii. 62, 63. iii. 2-8. vi. 18. Hence, if Ezra had made such an alteration, the Jews would all have known it, and could not have been imposed upon, and made to believe that this book was the same with the book of the law. Neither the priests, nor the Levites, nor any of the people, make the least opposition to Ezra’s copy of the law, but all allow it, receiving it as an undoubted copy of the law of Moses. See Neh. viii. And then it is most apparent that the style of the history of the Pentateuch is very different from Ezra’s style in the two books of Chronicles and the book of Ezra, whose style in history is very distinguishable from all the preceding histories of the Old Testament. Besides, it is manifest, that at the time that Ezra went up from Babylon to teach the Jews the law, the book of the law of Moses was not a thing of which the Jews, who were then abroad in the world, were destitute, as of a book which was lost or secreted, of which they were in quest, but of which they had not the possession, but it was a book well known by multitudes, and this fact was a thing at that time notorious and known to the heathen. It is manifest from the copy of Artaxerxes’s letter, Ezra vii. 25. “And thou, Ezra, after the wisdom of thy God, that is in thine hand, set magistrates and judges, which may judge all the people that are beyond the river, all such as know the laws of thy God; and teach ye them that know them not.” This made it impossible for Ezra to palm upon the people a book of his own contriving and writing, instead of the book of the law of Moses, the grand and ancient law of their God, which was the grand rule of their nation, and the foundation both of their civil and sacred constitution, and of all their privileges, and of their very being as a nation, separated from other nations.

It is very manifest, that soon after Ezra’s coming first to Jerusalem, as it is thought about ten or a dozen years after that event, Nehemiah, the king’s cup-bearer in Shushan, in Persia, was well acquainted with the book of the law of Moses, Neh. i. 7, 8, 9.; which clearly proves the falsity of the supposition that the nation of the Jews had at that time no other book of the law of Moses but that which was of Ezra’s forging and publishing, as nothing would be more absurd than to suppose his new forged book would in so short a time be published, and well known, and received, and established, not only at Jerusalem and Judea, but among the Jews dispersed over the world as far as Shushan, in so short a time.

And it could not be that any of the Jews in Judea should forge this book after the captivity, and impose it on the priests and the people before Ezra came, for this would have made no less jar between Ezra and the rest of the people than the other; for then Ezra would have known that this was not the true book of the law, for he was well acquainted with the law before he came out of the land of the captivity to Jerusalem. He was a noted scribe in the law of Moses in Babylon, Ezra vii. 6. insomuch that he was famed for it among the heathen, and was noted for it by the king of Persia, who over and over gives him that as a name that he was known by, ”Ezra the scribe of the law of the God of heaven.” Ezra vii. 11, 12, 13. And Ezra went up with a design to teach the people in Jerusalem this law of Moses; this was his main errand, as appears from Ezra vii. 6, 10, 14, 21, 23, 25, 26. and the book of the law that he taught the people he did not receive at Jerusalem of any of the priests, or others there, but carried it up with him in his hand, as appears from Ezra vii. 14, 25. and Neh. viii. 1, 2.

This great forgery, or fraudulent substitution of such a book as the Pentateuch for the book of the law of Moses, could not be done and imposed on the Jews at any time soon after the return from the captivity, for from what has been said already, it appears that there was the same book of the law well known by many, and received by all at that time, both by the Jews in Judea, and also by those who still remained in the land of their captivity; which could not possibly arise from any other cause than the tradition of this book from their forefathers who lived before the captivity. It is impossible that such a forgery should so quickly, so easily, and universally, without dispute or difference of parties, obtain through so great a nation, so disunited in the places of their abode. It could not have been so difficult to introduce and give currency to a forgery in any thing, as in the book of the law of Moses, their grand and sacred rule, and constitution and foundation: so much so that never did any people so much, and in so many respects, depend on any body of laws, as the Jewish nation depended on this book. It was for the sake of the laws commanded them and the privileges given them in this book, that they forsook their habitations, and all their possessions in the land of their captivity, and bore the loss and trouble of their journey to Palestine, and the great difficulties of rebuilding their city and temple, and resettling again in the land, and re-establishing their state there. And therefore we may be sure they would be, above all things, careful with regard to that book. In Haggai’s and Zechariah’s time, before the temple was finished, they had this book among them, as I observed before; but then many were living that had seen the former temple, and must know what kind of book that was that was called the law of Moses, that was amongst the people before the captivity, and was kept in their first temple. The highest ambition of the Jews that returned from the captivity, was to be like their forefathers in their religious privileges; and therefore they were for building a temple as near as they could like the former, and those that had seen the former temple wept bitterly that this new temple was no more like it; and doubtless they would be for having the same book of the law. The people that remembered the former temple must needs know what book that was, that was then called the book of the law, being so much and so severely reproved and threatened from time to time, by the prophet Jeremiah, for not conforming themselves to it, Jer. ii. 8. “The priests said not, Where is the Lord? And they that handle the law knew me not: the pastors also transgressed against me, and the prophets prophesied by Baal, and walked after things that do not profit.” Jer. xviii. 18. “Come and let us devise devices against Jeremiah, for the law shall not perish from the priests.’’ Jer. xlii. 23. and viii. 8. “How do ye say, We are wise, and the law of the Lord is with us? Lo, certainly in vain made he it, the pen of the scribes is in vain.” Chap. vi. 19. and xvi. 11. xliv. 10. and xxvi. 4. and xxxii. 23. See also Lam. ii. 9. Ezek. vii. 26. and xxii. 26.; and indeed the whole book of Jeremiah seems to suppose the book of the law extant, and visible among the people; the people therefore, that returned from the captivity, would not easily have received any other book, as the book of the law, to be their sacred rule, and to be laid up in the sanctuary, different from that which their forefathers had, and which had been laid up in the holy of holies in the former temple.

The book of the law of Moses was not lost in the time of the captivity, but was well known among the Jews in Babylon, Dan. ix. 10, 11, 12, 13.; and that this was a fact very publicly and openly known among the heathen, that they had the law of their God among them in the time of the captivity, is a thing manifest from Dan. vi. 5. and Ezra vii. 12, 21, 25.; yea it was extant among them just before their return, as appears from Dan. ix. 10, 11, 12, 13. “Yea, all Israel have transgressed thy law, even by departing, that they might not obey thy voice; therefore the curse is poured out upon us, and the oath that is written in the law of Moses, the servant of God.” And several of the prophecies of Daniel suppose the book of the covenant to be extant, Dan. xi. 22, 28, 30, 32. which shows more plainly how impossible it was for another book so different to be universally imposed on the nation in Babylon and Judea instead of this book, so soon after the captivity. It appears that the Jews in the captivity kept the writings of the prophet Jeremiah among them, from Dan. ix. 2. How much more would they keep copies of the law of Moses, which they esteemed as the foundation of all!

Again: It is most manifest that the Jews in their first re-settlement in Palestine, had those very records that we now have in the Pentateuch, as the records that had been constantly upheld in their nation, as the ancient, established, and undoubted sacred records of their nation, insomuch that when they on that occasion reckoned the people by their genealogies, they founded their reckoning on these records, and ran up their genealogies to the accounts given of their forefathers, and the first original of their families in them, making this record their standard, and grand rule, by which to judge who were true Israelites and who were not, and who were true priests and who not. So that they refused so much as to admit those that could not prove themselves to be of the seed of the priests, or of the seed of Israel according to the rule of this record, as appears by the genealogies in the first book of Chronicles, and particularly chap. ix. 1. and Ezra ii. 59, 62, 63. It was necessary for any one in order to prove himself to be of the genuine seed of the priests, that he should be able to run up his genealogy to Aaron; for his proving that he was of the seed of some other person that lived since did not prove it, unless he also proved that that person was a descendant of Aaron. And so for any one to prove that he was of the seed of Israel, he must be able to run up his genealogy to Israel himself.

So that this very record at that time was of such established reputation among them, that they all with one consent made it the very foundation of their re-establishment; they founded their nation and church in this its restoration wholly on this foundation, and by this rule, which shows that this record was no new thing among them, just then devised, with which before they had never been acquainted. It was a notorious fact, that in Esther’s time, known to the heathen, that the Jews who remained dispersed all over the Persian empire, from Judea to Ethiopia, agreed in one established law, which was very diverse from those of all other nations; Esther iii. 8.

Again: The zendavesta, or book that Zoroastes wrote, shows that the history of the Pentateuch was extant either in or before the time of the captivity of the Jews into Babylon, and was of great reputation then, because many things in that book of his are taken out of the history of the Pentateuch. He speaks of Adam and Eve as the first parents of mankind, and gives in a manner the same history of the creation and deluge that Moses doth, and speaks therein of Abraham, Joseph, and Moses, in the same manner as the Scriptures do, and out of a particular veneration for Abraham, he called his book the book of Abraham. (See Prid. part I. p. 318.) These things must have been taken from the Jews either at or before the time of the captivity. (See the preceding pages in Prideaux.)

Again: Another argument, that the Pentateuch with its history was the book that the Israelites anciently had among them as the book of the law of Moses even before the captivity, is, that the Samaritans had this Pentateuch as it is with its history, under this name of the book of the law of Moses. One argument that the Samaritan Pentateuch was written before the captivity, is, that it is written in the ancient Phoenician or Hebrew character; whereas, the Jewish copy is written in Chaldee letters; those letters becoming natural to them in their captivity; and therefore if they had taken their Pentateuch from the Jews after the captivity, they would have doubtless taken it in the same characters in which they had it; but in that it is found among them not in their characters, but in the characters that the Jews used before the captivity, it is a strong argument that they took it from the Jews before the captivity, and not afterwards. Whence should the Samaritans take those old Hebrew characters, if not from the Jews before the captivity? They were characters to which they were not used in their own country, but were much more likely to be used to the Chaldean characters then, from their living in the neighbourhood of Chaldea. And if they took the Pentateuch from the Jews after the captivity, whence should they take those characters, which were neither natural to themselves, nor in use among the Jews at that time?

Again: It is not at all likely that the Samaritans would be so fond of a conformity to the Jews after the captivity, as to adopt their laws and make the Jewish constitution their own, seeing there was always, even from the first return from the captivity, such a peculiar and inveterate enmity between them and the Jews.

And as such an alteration of the book of the law could not be made after the captivity without notice being taken of it, so neither could it at any time before, even in the most degenerate and ignorant times in Israel. Yet there must be so much knowledge of this book, as must render such a cheat impracticable; for the whole nation, in all its constitution, both civil and sacred, and in the title they had to their inheritance, and in all their usages, and innumerable peculiar customs, was so founded on this law, that it must unavoidably lead at least many in the nation to such a degree of knowledge of it, as to enable them to distinguish between that which is supposed to be so different from it as such a book as the Pentateuch, and only the body of the Mosaic precepts. Though the law was commanded to be laid up in the sanctuary, and kept there, yet it was not kept from the common use of the priests. The priests are called those that handle the law, Jer. ii. 8. See also Jer. xviii. 18. Ezek. vii. 26. Hag. ii. 11. Mal. ii. 7. It was required of the priests that they should be thoroughly acquainted with the law, for they in the law of Moses are appointed to teach it to the people. The great number of ceremonies and minute circumstances with which their business was attended, and also the multitude of observances which they were to teach the people out of the law, made it necessary in the nature of things that they should be thoroughly acquainted with the law, even to the having it as it were by heart. Hence the priests and Levites in all their cities and dwellings through the land, must be supposed to have copies of the law in their hands. This being also the judicial or political law of their nation, the rule of the civil magistrates and judges in all civil and criminal matters, and the rule by which every man held his possessions, and was defended in his civil and common rights; this made it necessary that civil magistrates, and those who sat to judge in their gates, should have copies of the law in their hands. The king was, by an express statute of the law, required to write him out a copy of the law with his own hand, and the law was commanded to be read to the whole congregation of Israel once in seven years. And particularly pious and devout persons were wont to have by them copies of the law, for it is mentioned as the character of the godly man, Psal. i. and xxxvii. 31.“That he meditate on God’s law day and night.” And all were commanded in the law to be continually meditating on the law, and make it as it were their constant companion day and night, that it might be for a sign on their hand, and as frontlets between their eyes, and that they should make it the continual subject of their conversation one with another, as they sat in the house, and as they walked by the way, &c. It was not to be shut up only in the holy of holies, and in any respect so disposed of as to be out of the reach of any, but to be nigh to every one, in every one’s heart and mouth, as appears from Deut. xxx. 11-14. See also Deut. vi. 6, 7, 8, 9. and chap. xi. 18, 19, 20. and chap. iv. 9. It is true the law, in times of great degeneracy, was much more neglected, and less known; and copies of it were more rare than at other times, as in the reign of Manasseh. The original that Moses laid up in the sanctuary had been neglected and lost, being buried up in rubbish, as the temple of God itself was neglected, and the finding of it by the priest was a thing greatly taken notice of, and excited the observation and inquiry of the king and people into the nature of things contained in this book, and the Spirit of God set in on that occasion greatly to impress the king’s mind with the things contained in that book, and the finding and reading that very book, as written by Moses’s own hand, had a natural tendency greatly to engage the attention of the king, and to affect him in the reading of it. But we are not to suppose, that during that degenerate time, there was no copy of the law extant and in use among any of the people. If in the most degenerate times in Israel, there were seven thousand devout worshippers of the true God left, though but little known, so undoubtedly in Manasseh’s reign there were many of the priests and Levites, and others that were devout worshippers of the true God, enough to keep many copies of the law for their use to direct them in God’s service.

As to the passages in the Pentateuch, wherein a later hand than that of Moses is evident, they are very few: as Witsius, in his Miscel. Sac. observes. Two of them are only a kind of translation of the names of places, as of the city of Hebron, and the place to which Abraham pursued the kings, where it is said he pursued them unto Dan. The history is exactly the same that Moses must be supposed to write, and the place mentioned the same that Moses mentioned; but the alteration that is made by some later hand is rendering the name of the place by a word whose signification was known to the people; and those two are the only instances that appear manifest to me of all that Le Clerc mentions, excepting only the account of Moses’s death and burial. As to the name Hebron, so often used in the Pentateuch, it is very probable that there is in it no later hand than that of Moses; for, though it was called Arbah at first, yet it seems to have been named Hebron, which signifies fellowship, from his there entering into an association or covenant-fellowship with Mamre, Eshcol, and Aner. Compare Gen. xiii. 18. with chap. xiv. 13. It is likely that Abraham might give a name to this place from his entering into this fellowship with those men here, that he should name the place where he entered into covenant with Abimelech, Beer-sheba, from that covenant, as Gen. xxi. 31, 32.; or possibly this name Hebron, or fellowship, might be given to the place from that wonderful communion and fellowship which Abraham there had with angels, with whom he ate, and drank, and conversed most familiarly under an oak, and where at the same time he familiarly conversed with God about the destruction of Sodom, which is much remarked by Abraham and God himself, Gen. xviii. ver. 17, 27, 37. Or it might have been named so first from Abraham’s fellowship with Mamre, Aner, and Eshcol, and afterwards confirmed from this his communion with God and the angels, as Beer-sheba was first so named from Abraham’s covenant with Abimelech, and afterwards confirmed from Isaac’s covenant in the same place, Gen. xxvi. 30-33. It seems that after this, when the posterity of Abraham left the land and sojourned in Egypt, this place went no more by that name Hebron in the land of Canaan, but when the children of Israel returned, and Caleb took possession of the place, he restored the name which Abraham gave it.

See Dupin, at the beginning of the first volume of his Ecclesiastical History. See concerning places inserted after Moses’s death, §§§ Num. xxi. 14.

As to the account of Moses’s death and burial, it was not Ezra that made this addition; for the Samaritan Pentateuch, which was taken from the Jews before Ezra, has this addition, and all other passages that have been supposed to be additions. This addition of Moses’s death in all probability was made by Joshua, who, it is evident, was a divine writer, and a writer of divine records, and was Moses’s successor, who alone was in the mount with him forty days and forty nights, and who succeeded to Moses’s authority, and to most of his divine privileges and intercourse with heaven, on whom Moses laid his hand, and committed the care of the whole congregation, and of the law and tabernacle, into his hands. He succeeded Moses as the head of the congregation, and as their judge, and as the person by whom they were to transact with God, as it was with Moses. He had the care of setting up the tabernacle, and therefore he took care to set it up in Shiloh, and he took the care of the settlement of the church of Israel, and the establishment of the worship of God in Canaan, and he was looked upon as having the care of the book of the law of Moses, even so as to have power to add words to it, as appears from Josh. xxiv. 26.

Places in the New Testament, which suppose Moses to be the penman of the Pentateuch, John v. 46, 47. Mark xii. 26. compared with Exod. iii. 6. Acts xv. 21. 2 Cor. iii. 14, 15. Heb. xii. 21.