Deuteronômio 34

Deuteronômio 34

Morgan - Life Applications from Every Chapter of the Bible - Deuteronomy 34:10 There hath not arisen a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face.—Deut 34.10 In this last chapter of Deuteronomy we have the writing of another hand. It contains the story of the death of Moses, the equipment of Joshua for his work, and a last tender reference to the great leader and law-giver, beginning with these particular words. For the man who wrote them, they were true words; and they remained true through all the history of that wonderful people until One was born of the seed of David, Who was greater far than Moses. In his second discourse Moses had foretold his coming in the words: "I will raise them up a prophet from among their brethren like unto thee." Long centuries elapsed, but at last He came, and in His coming fulfilled all Moses had initiated under the Divine government; absorbed and abolished the law which came through him, in the grace and truth which He brought to men. All this does not detract from, but rather enhances our sense of the greatness of this servant of God. His passing was full of beauty. In the fact of his exclusion from the land toward which he had led the people, it was a punishment; but, like all the chastisements of God, it was wonderfully tempered with mercy. There had been no weakening of his force. Everything ended in full strength. He went up to die. Jehovah gave him a vision of the land, and then buried him in that unknown grave. It was an august and glorious ending to a great and dignified life. Thus ends the last book of the Pentateuch, the final section of the Law. Its supreme value is its revelation of the need for the Priest and the Gospel. Norman Geisler - When Critics Ask - DEUTERONOMY 34:10—Was Moses unparalleled among prophets or were others equal to him? PROBLEM: This text claims that “since then there has not arisen in Israel a prophet like Moses.” However, there were others, like Elijah and Eli- sha, who got revelations from God and performed miracles like Moses did (cf. 1 Kings 17:22; 2 Kings 1:10; 2:14; 4:34). SOLUTION: First of all, this claim is qualified by the phrase “since then,” which refers to the time these words were written, possibly by Joshua, his immediate successor (see comments on Deuteronomy 34:1ff). Further, even if one extends the time to a much later period, there is still another qualification that makes Moses unique. It adds “whom the Lord knew face to face” (v. 10). This has not been true of any mere human prophet since Moses’ day. Moses was the great lawgiver, whom God spoke to directly and intimately, in a manner not repeated since Moses’ day until the coming of Jesus, who was face to face with God (John 1:1). (Is there a Bible contradiction in Deuteronomy 34:10?) DEUTERONOMY 34:10—Does this verse support the Muslim claim that Jesus could not be the predicted prophet (of Deut. 18:18)? PROBLEM: This verse claims that “there arose not a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses.” (KJV) Muslims argue that this proves that the predicted prophet could not be an Israelite, but was Mohammed instead. SOLUTION: In response, several things should be noted. First, the “since” means since Moses’ death to the time this last chapter was written, probably by Joshua (see comments on Deut. 34:1ff). Even if Deuteronomy was written much later, as some critics believe, it still was composed many centuries before the time of Christ and, therefore, would not eliminate Him. Second, Jesus was the perfect fulfillment of this prediction of the prophet to come, not Mohammed (see comments on Deut. 18:15–18). Third, this could not refer to Mohammed, since the prophet to come was like Moses who did “all the signs and wonders which the Lord sent” (Deut. 34:11). Mohammed by his own confession did not perform signs and wonders like Moses and Jesus did (see Surah 17:90–93). Finally, the prophet to come was like Moses who spoke to God “face to face” (Deut. 34:10). Mohammed never even claimed to speak to God directly, but got his revelations through angels (cf. Surah 2:97). Jesus, on the other hand, like Moses, was a direct mediator (1 Tim. 2:5; Heb. 9:15) who communicated directly with God (cf. John 1:18; 12:49). (Is there a Bible contradiction in Deuteronomy 34:10?) Deuteronomy 34:11 for all the signs and wonders which the LORD sent him to perform in the land of Egypt against Pharaoh, all his servants, and all his land, Dt 4:34 Dt 7:19 Ps 78:43-58 Ps 105:26-38 Related Passages: Deuteronomy 4:34+ Or has a god tried to go to take for himself a nation from within another nation by trials, by signs and wonders and by war and by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm and by great terrors, as the LORD your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes? Deuteronomy 6:22 ‘Moreover, the LORD showed great and distressing signs and wonders before our eyes against Egypt, Pharaoh and all his household; Deuteronomy 7:19+ the great trials which your eyes saw and the signs and the wonders and the mighty hand and the outstretched arm by which the LORD your God brought you out. So shall the LORD your God do to all the peoples of whom you are afraid. Deuteronomy 26:8 and the LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm and with great terror and with signs and wonders; Psalm 78:43-58 When He performed His signs in Egypt And His marvels in the field of Zoan, 44 And turned their rivers to blood, And their streams, they could not drink. 45 He sent among them swarms of flies which devoured them, And frogs which destroyed them. 46 He gave also their crops to the grasshopper And the product of their labor to the locust. 47He destroyed their vines with hailstones And their sycamore trees with frost. 48 He gave over their cattle also to the hailstones And their herds to bolts of lightning. 49 He sent upon them His burning anger, Fury and indignation and trouble, A band of destroying angels. 50He leveled a path for His anger; He did not spare their soul from death, But gave over their life to the plague, 51And smote all the firstborn in Egypt, The first issue of their virility in the tents of Ham. 52 But He led forth His own people like sheep And guided them in the wilderness like a flock; 53 He led them safely, so that they did not fear; But the sea engulfed their enemies. 54 So He brought them to His holy land, To this hill country which His right hand had gained. 55 He also drove out the nations before them And apportioned them for an inheritance by measurement, And made the tribes of Israel dwell in their tents. 56 Yet they tempted and rebelled against the Most High God And did not keep His testimonies, 57 But turned back and acted treacherously like their fathers; They turned aside like a treacherous bow. 58 For they provoked Him with their high places And aroused His jealousy with their graven images. For all the signs and wonders which the LORD sent him to perform in the land of Egypt against Pharaoh, all his servants, and all his land, Deuteronomy 34:12 and for all the mighty power and for all the great terror which Moses performed in the sight of all Israel. and for all the mighty power and for all the great terror which Moses performed in the sight of all Israel. NET Note - The Hebrew text of v. 12 reads literally, "with respect to all the strong hand and with respect to all the awesome greatness which Moses did before the eyes of all Israel." James Hastings - MY SERVANT MOSES My servant Moses … is faithful in all mine house.—Num. 12:7. 1. THE general impression left on our minds by the life and character of Moses, regarded as a whole, is unquestionably one of extraordinary, almost solitary, grandeur, dignity and elevation. Wordsworth’s line describes it best:— Thy soul was like a star, and dwelt apart. There is not a single character in the Old Testament that will bear comparison with it—for purity, for elevation, for power, for pathos. There is only one character in the whole range of history that overtops it; and that is more than human—the character of our Lord Jesus Christ. ¶ The character of Moses is sketched, particularly in the earlier narratives of J and E, with peculiar vividness and force. He is represented not only as a man of deeply religious spirit, but also as endowed, in a pre-eminent degree, with singleness of aim, with nobility of mind, with dignity of demeanour, with unwearied and self-sacrificing devotion for the welfare of his people, and with that modesty of both word and demeanour which is observable in all the best characters of Old Testament history, and which was no doubt impressed upon them by the mellowing influences of the religion of Yahweh. ¶ Moses is incontestably the chief personage of the whole history of the Exodus. In the narrative, the phrase is constantly recurring: “The Lord spake unto Moses,” “Moses spake unto the children of Israel.” In the traditions of the desert, whether late or early, his name predominates over that of every one else: “The Wells of Moses” (Ayûn Mûsa) on the shores of the Red Sea, “The Mountain of Moses” (Jebel Mûsa) near the convent of St. Catherine, “The Ravine of Moses” (Skuk Mûsa) at Mount St. Catherine, “The Valley of Moses” (Wady Mûsa) at Petra. “The Books of Moses” are so called (as afterwards the Books of Samuel), in all probability from its being the chief subject of them. The very word “Mosaic” has been in later times applied, in a sense not used of any other saint of the Old Testament, to the whole religion of which he was the expounder. ¶ The debt owed to Moses by his fellow-countrymen can hardly be over-estimated. Lawgiver and judge, physician and priest, their leader in war and peace, where has there ever been the monarch who could compare with this marvellously gifted individual, founder of a religion, of a code, of a nation that has victoriously withstood all perils, and outlived the mighty empires by which it was overthrown and oppressed? Caesar, Charlemagne, and Haroun-al-Rashid, wise and powerful as they may have been, must each yield the palm to Moses, for their work has left no trace, the ideals to which they devoted their lives are but an empty name, whilst the Hebrew, born in servitude, has left his mark on the thought, the action, and the religion of the whole Gentile world, and made of the wretched tribes, whom he led forth out of bondage, a nation increasing daily in number and in strength, wealthy beyond all others, and rapidly spreading over the face of the earth. 2. An epithet is applied to Moses in the Bible hardly consistent with the view that he was a great leader of men. He is called “very meek” (Num. 12:3), the word used being generally applied in the Psalms to the poor and afflicted ones of the nation. Yet this characteristic seems to have been one of the secrets of his success. Moses was able to endure the difficulties of his position in silence, and the unreasonable and childish conduct of the people never provoked him to abandon his task. He went on steadily day by day attending to their interests, hearing their disputes, doing justice between man and man, waiting patiently for signs of improvement which seldom, if ever, manifested themselves. Educated amid all the splendours of an Egyptian palace, he devoted his life to the government of a half-civilized and undisciplined horde, bearing with waywardness, folly, and ingratitude with unshaken constancy, and by his sublime endurance winning from posterity the fame of having been the “most enduring of men.” By all accounts Moses did not begin by being a meek man. The truth is, no truly meek man ever does so begin. It is not true meekness if it is found in any man at the beginning of his life. It may be sloth, it may be softness, it may be easiness, it may be indifference, it may be policy and calculation, it may be insensibility of heart, it may be sluggishness of blood, but true meekness it is not. True meekness it is not till it has been planted and watered and pruned and purified and beaten upon by every wind of God, and cut to pieces by every knife of God, and all the time engrafted and seated deep in the meekness and in the gentleness and in the humility of the Spirit of God and the Son of God. It would be far nearer the truth to say that Moses, to begin with, was the hastiest and the hottest and the least meek and the least longsuffering of men. It was but a word and a blow with young Moses. Thus it was that he had to pay with forty years’ banishment for his sudden spring upon that Egyptian taskmaster, and for the life-long thanks of that delivered slave. ¶ Every one will admit that the record of the life of Moses manifests a patience, meekness, and constancy, which is perhaps the most wonderful ever displayed by a man. We are told, indeed, of occasional outbursts of wrath that bore down all meekness; and men have pointed to them as proofs that Moses was not so wonderfully patient; but those very outbursts of anger seem to be the strongest proofs of his patience. For there is a kind of gentleness which belongs to men whose feelings are too placid to be stirred by injustice, and who maintain a mild calmness even in the presence of flagrant wrong,—that gentleness was not his, who, in his youth, fired at the sight of the oppression of his people, struck down the oppressor at the peril of his own life. There is an amiability of character which springs from the absence of powerful feelings, and which is seldom disturbed—that was not characteristic of him who, roused into fury at the people’s murmurings, smote the rock in disobedience to his Lord. The nobler meekness is that which comes forth victorious from the struggle with strong emotion, and wins a glory from the passion it has subdued. And thus, that very indication of an impetuous, fiery nature in Moses only reveals the beauty of the meek patience which marked his life. If you can conceive a man who had hoped for forty years for the deliverance of his people, discovering that they had been careless, faithless, and sensual, and yet silently bearing their reproaches—a man with a passionate, impetuous spirit, enduring their daily murmurings, and after giving way to anger, praying for their success, till, worn with emotion, his strength gave way—a man enduring constant, ignorant, perverse unthankfulness, in the hope of leading the people into their own land, and then calmly surrendering that hope, and dying with it unfulfilled, you can form some idea of the sublime meekness that characterized the leadership of Moses. In seeking to estimate the character of Moses as the historical narratives have made him live before us, we may consider him as (1) Leader, (2) Lawgiver, and (3) Prophet. I THE LEADER Thou leddest thy people like a flock, By the hand of Moses and Aaron.—Ps. 77:20. That the ancestors—or some of the ancestors—of the later Israelites were for long settled in Egypt, and in the end subjected there to hard bondage; that Moses was the leader who, after much opposition on the part of the Pharaoh, rescued them from their thraldom at a time when Egypt was paralysed by an unprecedented succession of national calamities, and led them through a part of the Red Sea usually covered with water, beyond reach of their recent oppressors; that he brought them afterwards to a mountain where Israel received through him a revelation which was a new departure in the national religion, and became the foundation both of the later religion of Israel and of Christianity; that he originated, or more probably adapted, customs and institutions from which the later civil and religious organization of the nation was developed; and that thus Israel owed to Moses both its national existence and, ultimately, its religious character—these, and other facts such as these, cannot be called in question by a reasonable criticism. 1. Had Moses the gifts of leadership? We are certainly impressed more by his silence and backwardness than by his speech. But the truth is that for leadership, in any disinterested cause, the outward gifts count for little compared with inward strength. So far as your true motive is personal ambition and display, take prudently the measure of your powers, and do not overstep your actual capacities. “Nature sets its just premium on reality.” No eloquence or emphasis avails, if to those that hear you the expression seems somehow rather larger than the man. If you are called by the inner voice to some unselfish enterprise and service, the scale of it, the risk, the weight of the responsibility, the felt deficiency of gifts, need not hold you back, if only you will bring to it the veracity, the generosity of spirit, the trust in God, which gave to Moses power and place of leadership. “I am that I am”; cling fast to the eternal and the true, and you need fear no exposure of human weaknesses: they will not bring you to discredit or to shame. And grudge not their gifts to any. If others should outshine you in charm or brilliance or power of inspiration, think not that they usurp your place, but say with Moses, “Enviest thou for my sake? would God that all the Lord’s people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his spirit upon them!” You cannot covet influence too much. It is among God’s choicest gifts. To every young man who is face to face with choice of his profession I would say, See that that finds its place in your scales of choice. As you choose between the law, medicine, the civil service, the army, the desk, the ministry, the school, bethink you well which offers you the field of influence most germane to your personal type. It is the thing most precious, most praiseworthy, the thing which most abides before the judgment-seat of God. But the longer you live and the more experience ripens, the more you will realize that it proceeds not from gifts, but from sincerity of life, unselfishness of aim, and fidelity to God. It is the least self-conscious of all powers. No sense of shortcoming impairs it. Moses, as history proves, possessed it in pre-eminent degree; but Moses, I doubt not, was to the last more conscious of failure than of success. “Meekest of men” became his epithet, and therefore the most staunch, the most enduring, the most impervious to defeat. ¶ In reading the early letters of men of genius I can recall my former self, full of an aspiration which had not learned how hard the hills of life are to climb, but thought rather to alight down upon them from its winged vantage-ground. Whose fulfilment has ever come nigh the glorious greatness of his yet never-balked youth? As we grow older, art becomes to us a definite faculty, instead of a boundless sense of power. Then we felt the wings burst from our shoulders; they were a gift and a triumph, and a bare flutter from twig to twig seemed aquiline to us; but now our vans, though broader grown and stronger, are matters of every day. We may reach our Promised Land; but it is far behind us in the Wilderness, in the early time of struggle, that we have our Sinais and our personal talk with God in the bush. 2. Notice other signs of leadership in Moses. (1) He had a keen sense of wrong when witnessing the ill-usage of others, an indignation against injustice, a warm sympathy with the weak under the oppression of the strong. All people profess this sympathy, but in some it is a feeling which leads to action. It was such a feeling in Moses, as the very first act of his which we read of shows—when he saw one of the Israelites suffering wrong from an Egyptian, and avenged him that was oppressed, and smote the Egyptian. The Israelites were a poor despised race in Egypt, and the Egyptians ill-treated them. Moses saw one of these cases of ill-usage, and it roused in him immediately this sympathy for the oppressed, and this indignation against oppression. So again in Midian, when he fled there, his first act was to stand up for the seven daughters of the priest of Midian who came to water their flocks at the well, and whom the violent and unmannerly shepherds drove away. They went home and told their father: “An Egyptian delivered us out of the hands of the shepherds, and also drew water enough for us, and watered the flock.” This was the disposition of Moses, and therefore God chose him to be the deliverer of the children of Israel out of Egypt. (2) At first rash and impulsive, Moses submitted to the Divine chastisement and discipline so thoroughly that a real change was produced in his character. This is a fact which arrests our attention. A real change in the temper of any man is a wonderful thing. We rarely see it, so rarely that we are sometimes tempted to doubt whether there is such a thing. People change particular habits; they learn to control particular bodily appetites and passions; they may give up drinking or gaming, or swearing; they may force themselves to do things; which they once neglected to do; even if there is a deep fault at the root of a man, such as pride, jealousy, meanness, we may often see that fault disguised, moderated in its outward expression, and made to look more plausible; yet how seldom do we see a really converted heart, a new-born man in the deepest and most vital parts of the character! The change in the disposition of Moses is revealed in such genuine acts that it ranks with the other great changes of heart in Scripture—the change in him who once would have called down fire from heaven to consume those who opposed themselves to the truth, and who afterwards became the preacher of love; the change in him who was once Saul and afterwards Paul. (3) His sympathy for the people is deeper, keener than before. But now it is used to bear with them, plead for them, and when necessary denounce and resist them. He is thus the pattern of the good ruler, and stands in special contrast to the selfish ruler of the world’s type. The successful ruler of the world’s type is one who uses the weaknesses and the vices of mankind for his own personal advantage and exaltation. He maintains his own influence and position, not by curbing and restraining the follies and humours of the people, but by skilfully yielding and giving way to them; he quotes and misapplies the proverb of the oak and the sapling, one of which was uprooted by the storm because in its strength it withstood it; the other survived the storm because in its weakness it yielded to it. Thus by making himself convenient to man’s corrupt wishes, he keeps up his place in the world; he does not really care for the people’s good, but uses compliance with others only to secure the exaltation of himself. Power is a selfish prize in his eyes. A good ruler, on the other hand, cares for the good of the people, and for that good will run the risk even of losing his own power. Moses, in resisting the vices of his people, has set the pattern of such a ruler. He did not maintain his power by giving way to them. He resisted their sins, he rebuked them, he punished them, while he loved them, and because he loved them. ¶ It so happens that Moses has been interpreted to us by one of deeper insight than any critic or commentator, by a spirit as great and lofty as his own; and, above all, by one whose life, like that of Moses, was made bitter by the treachery, stupidity, and sensuality of a generation among whom he towered up, a soul too great not to be misunderstood. Four hundred years ago there lived a man, sculptor, painter, poet, to whom God gave a mighty genius for art. His name we know as Michelangelo; and Michelangelo, in his divinest inspiration, sculptured the face and figure of Moses. “If among all the masterpieces of ancient and modern statuary there is one that stands forth without a parallel, the most impressive figure ever sculptured in stone or bronze, it is the statue of Moses by Michelangelo.” And how does Michelangelo interpret the meekest of all the men that were upon the face of the earth? To say that the face of the sculptured Moses is strong, wise, majestic, is to fall short of the truth. It is almost terrible in its greatness and loftiness. The lines of care, and sorrow, and disappointment are deep in it; and yet they are lost and forgotten in the unconquerable power and wisdom of it. It is the face of a man who might move among his fellows as a kind of god. But according to the old Latin proverb, “The gods themselves are vanquished by stupidity”; and so the artist has left on the face of the Lawgiver, the shadow of that life-long struggle with the perverseness, the ignorance, and the degradation of the race of slaves whom he made into a nation. When I do think on thee, sweet Hope, and how Thou followest on our steps, a coaxing child Oft chidden hence, yet quickly reconciled, Still turning on us a glad, beaming brow, And red, ripe lips for Kisses; even now Thou mindest me of him, the Ruler mild, Who led God’s chosen people through the wild, And bore with wayward murmurers, meek as thou That bringest waters from the Rock, with bread Of angels strewing Earth for us! like him Thy force abates not, nor thine eye grows dim; But still with milk and honey-droppings fed, Thou leadest to the Promised Country fair, Though thou, like Moses, may’st not enter there! II THE LAWGIVER The law was given by Moses.—John 1:17. 1. That “the law was given by Moses” is the universal tradition of the Jewish Church. To what extent does modern scholarship confirm the truth of the tradition? (1) It may fairly be questioned, says Ottley, whether the Decalogue in its present form can be ascribed to Moses. In the first place, what appears to be an older and widely different version of the “ten words” is found in the Book of Exodus (34:14–26); secondly, the Decalogue in its present form seems to be influenced by the teaching of the eighth-century prophets. It is also urged that an exclusively moral code is not consistent with the predominantly ritualistic character of early religions. Other arguments have been adduced which it is needless to consider in detail. The facts as they stand are perplexing, and justify a suspension of judgment. It is reasonable to suppose that the Decalogue in its present form bears traces of expansion in prophetic times; at the same time it lays down principles of morality which are so elementary as to be strictly consistent with what we know of the condition of Israel in Mosaic times. It is difficult to see what other precepts could have been better adapted to lift the Hebrews above the degraded nature-religion of their heathen neighbours, to teach them the true character of their Divine Deliverer, and to educate them in the rudiments of social justice and humanity. In short, the “ten words” as we have them in the Pentateuch may be a later prophetic summary of the great moral ideas contained in the religion of Moses; but there is every reason to suppose that in a brief and easily remembered form the primary moral precepts of the Decalogue constituted from the first the foundation of Israel’s national development. It is indeed impossible otherwise to account for the vitality and vigour which gave to the Hebrews their physical and moral superiority over the inhabitants of Canaan. The Decalogue has in fact intrinsic credibility as a Mosaic utterance, and we may reasonably accept it as an authentic monument—at least in its main substance—of the period to which Hebrew tradition assigns it. ¶ While many of the enactments of the Book of the Covenant served but a temporary purpose, and passed away with the religion of Judaism, the Decalogue has been retained unchanged in the Christian Church. The Divinity of its origin and the excellency of its contents still give it a foremost place in the theology of every Christian community. There is nothing in it that is not valid for mankind. It is a universal code of morals. No compend of morality among ethnic religions can be compared with it. The ethical systems of Confucius, of Zoroaster, of Buddha, of the Greek moralists, are far behind it as a summary of human duty. All will admit that the Decalogue is cast in an archaic mould; and the negative form in which its commandments are addressed is in keeping with its primitive character. In the infantile life of a nation, as in child life, the early part of its moral training must always consist of concrete precepts, expressed in a prohibitory form. In the first portion of a child’s life it has to be kept from harm by continual prohibitions; and the formation at that early stage of the habit of obedience to these simple prohibitory commands is essential to moral well-being. Thus it is thoroughly consistent with the youthful stage of the Beni-Israel, a horde of slaves newly enfranchised and little better than children, that this fundamental code of moral and religious duty should be one not of principles but of plain precepts. Children do not understand principles: they must at first receive simple, concrete directions as to what they shall do and not do. Truth must be accommodated to the measure of their mind; and while they cannot comprehend the principles that lie at the basis of property, they understand the command “Do not steal.” The first stage of moral education will be full of restrictions. And the form of the Decalogue is in keeping with the stage of Israel’s progress in morality. (2) Again, some forms of worship were doubtless observed in the wilderness, though it is impossible to point to any details of cultus prescribed by Moses himself. Some traditional usages seem to have been retained or regulated by the lawgiver. There certainly existed a primitive sanctuary, or “tent of meeting,” designed to serve as the seat of the sacred oracle and as a shelter for the ark. In form this structure would resemble the ordinary shepherd’s tent, having its outer and inner compartment, and standing in an enclosed court. The tent of meeting seems in Mosaic times to have been pitched outside the camp (Exod. 33:7; Num. 11:26, 12:4), and not, as was assumed in post-exilic times, at its centre. Sacrifices of some kind must have been offered during the wanderings, but we can only conjecture what their exact significance may have been. According to the primitive Semitic idea, sacrifice was the means of renewing or maintaining the bond which united the people to their god; and a ceremony like that described in connexion with the ratification of the covenant (Exod. 24) would probably be repeated on special occasions, e.g., before the tribes engaged in battle with their enemies. If Moses instituted a regular priesthood, possibly recruited from members of his own tribe (Levi), it is unlikely that its main function was that of sacrifice. The “holy” persons of Semitic antiquity were attached to the sanctuary and were its recognized guardians, but they were employed chiefly in consulting the oracle touching matters of difficulty. To the priesthood would naturally fall the task of continuing the work of Moses, i.e., imparting torah to those who asked for guidance, and giving judicial sentences (toroth) in matters of dispute. Thus a traditional and authoritative torah would gradually be formed, and there would be a tendency for the priesthood to become hereditary in certain families. The means by which Jehovah’s will was ascertained was usually the casting of the sacred lot, and it is easy to understand how rapidly the priesthood would acquire a powerful influence over the mass of the people. The original torah given by Moses, and after his time by the priesthood, was oral; and the name “En-mishpat” (“well of judgment”) at Kadesh, which was for a long period the religious centre of the tribes, indicates that the sanctuary was invariably the seat of justice, as well as the place of worship. ¶ Even on Wellhausen’s own admissions, it may be urged that the Levitical Law, as we have it now, is but the codified form of the Torahs given by Moses. For that critic makes the Jews go from Egypt to Kadesh, as “the original object of their wanderings,” and there spend “the forty years of their wanderings in the wilderness.” “The legislation at the seat of judgment at Kadesh,” he proceeds to say, “goes on for forty years, and consists in the dispensation of justice at the sanctuary, which he begins, and the priests and judges carry on after him according to the pattern he set. And in this way the Torah has its place in the historical narrative, not in virtue of its matter as the contents of a code, but from its form as constituting the professional activity of Moses. It is in history not as a result, as the sum of the laws and usages binding on Israel, but as a process.” From this point of view Moses was the author of the Customary Law of Israel, which assumes a codified form in the Pentateuch, and the Law thus codified may not improperly be called the Law of Moses, as tradition has taught us to call it. 2. If we seek to know to what extent the Mosaic legislation is original, we need go no further than the Code of Hammurabi. Dr. C. H. W. Johns, in a very full examination of the Code of Hammurabi and its relation to the Mosaic legislation, in Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible, v. 611, sums up in these words: “We may say that the Israelite legislation shows strong traces of Babylonian influence, and yet not destroy the independence of its origin. We cannot suppose that the author of any code set to work to draw up a comprehensive scheme of law. Each built upon the already prevailing custom. His attention would be directed chiefly to what was not matter of uniform treatment. The most characteristically Babylonian things in the current custom of the day in Israel may be just those which are not legislated for. The new legislation did not require to touch what was so firmly established. Other things of Babylonian origin may have been abrogated by the new laws—it would not be necessary to say what they had been, but merely by stating the new law to say they should be no longer. That any Israelite code shows marked differences from the Code of Hammurabi is enough to show an independent origin. The absence of any difference would show complete dependence. The co-existing likenesses and differences argue for an independent recension of ancient custom deeply influenced by Babylonian law. The actual Code of Hammurabi is a witness to what influence might accomplish. It cannot be held to be a creative source. The Code may only be itself a proof of the same influences. These may be called Semitic in preference to Babylonian. But that view calls for overwhelming proof that there was any source of civilization powerful enough to have this influence on both Israel and Babylonia. The presumption that Babylonia had a prominent influence on Palestine long before Israelite codes were drawn up is one that grows stronger as time goes on.” III THE PROPHET And there hath not arisen a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face.—Deut. 34:10. 1. To say that the history of Israel is a history of her prophets is to say that it is a history in which the moving and significant agent is Jehovah, whose mouthpiece and representative the prophets were: “Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets: the Lord God hath spoken, who can but prophesy?” (Amos 3:7); in other words, it is a history of revelation, for revelation implies that to certain individuals, and not immediately to the people at large, God makes Himself and His will known. The prophet is a man who, for clearness of insight, and purity of purpose, and knowledge of God, stands above the mass of his compatriots: and so, if Moses was a prophet, this is what we should expect him to be. And in the representations which we have of him, these are the qualities which we find. The writers to whom we owe his biography pictured him as a prophet, and described him accordingly. He speaks in Jehovah’s name to Pharaoh; he uses the prophetic expressions, “Thus saith Jehovah,” etc.; he leads Israel out of Egypt under a sense of God’s directing hand; he hears inwardly God’s words, and sees on Sinai manifestations of His presence; specifically prophetic teaching is communicated through him, or put into his mouth (Exod. 4:22, 6:7 (P), 15:26, 19:5–6, 33:19, 34:6–7, and elsewhere: Deut. passim); Jehovah is even represented as holding converse with him not by a vision or a dream, as with an ordinary prophet, but with some special and distinctive clearness (Num. 12:6, 8), “as a man speaketh unto his friend” (Exod. 33:11; cf. Deut. 34:10). Hosea, writing c. 740 B.C., expressly styles him a prophet (12:13). 2. In word and deed Moses showed himself an instrument of the Lord, unapproached by any other. He was the prophet without rival in respect of his intercourse with God and of what the Lord did and revealed by him. Of Moses it is said more frequently than of all other prophets together: “God talked with him,” or “God spake to him.” He is not only called “Servant of the Lord”—and, indeed, most frequently of all the men of God in the Old Testament,—“Servant of God,” a designation used of him exclusively; but he is also called the greatest among the prophets on account of the intimacy and familiarity of the intercourse he enjoyed with God, and on account of the clear directness which in consequence distinguished the revelation given to him. Moreover, his mission consisted, not merely in being a channel of the Divine word, but in a unique, creative work—it was Moses who, through the Divine word, introduced the Divine rule in Israel. ¶ Popularly, Moses is known as the lawgiver. But, though he is called so by the Jews themselves, they never mean to imply that he was the fons et origo of the legislation to which his name is attached. There is no doubt that his Egyptian education specially prepared him for being the inspired medium of the Divine revelation. But it was not out of the resources of his own mind that the legislative code sprang. He was but a προφήτης, a spokesman for God. And it was not as a legislator like Solon or Justinian that he was said to have given the Law to Israel. Moses himself originated nothing. He was but the pen in the hand of the Almighty, communicating what he had already received. 3. Although, as already stated, it may not be possible to point to any special details of the cultus which can be certainly ascribed to Moses, there is no doubt that in two important points he laid the foundations of Israel’s religious development. (1) In the first place he grasped for himself, and taught his fellow-tribesmen, the true significance of the events connected with the departure of the tribes from Egypt. He understood the bearing of these events on the character of Jehovah: His “holiness” or separateness from nature, His power, His willingness to redeem. In the great deliverance was involved a revelation which was necessarily the starting-point of a higher religion. Accordingly the central principle of his system was devotion to Jehovah as a gracious Being who had mercifully intervened to deliver an enslaved people from bondage; who had manifested His lordship over nature and His superiority to the deities of the heathen; who had adopted Israel and brought it into a filial relation to Himself. The loosely organized tribes were in fact welded into a nation by their common relationship to their Deliverer; and it has been justly remarked that this adhesion of a group of tribes to a single deity marked a step in advance from mere “henotheism” or “monolatry” towards monotheism. But it is even more important to notice that in the Mosaic conception of Jehovah lay “the promise and potency,” not of mere monotheism, but of the ethical monotheism of the great prophets of the eighth century. For Jehovah revealed Himself in the events of the Exodus as the God, not of a particular territory, but of a people. Throughout the wanderings He walked with them in a tent and in a tabernacle. He led them onwards through the toils of their pilgrimage and brought them into the Land of Promise. He manifested in deeds His hatred of oppression and injustice, His longsuffering, His compassion, His readiness to forgive, His sustaining power and grace. Thus by kindling and keeping alive Israel’s faith in its deliverer, Moses gave the tribes a rallying-point and a bond of union which could never be altogether lost to view. (2) In the second place Moses taught the supreme importance in religion of righteous conduct. The deliverance from Egypt formed the basis of a covenant between Jehovah and the ransomed people. The Hebrews became servants of Jehovah. Redeemed by Him they were henceforth bound to His service. At the very outset they were subjected to an elementary moral code, and were reminded that a special character was the condition of covenant-fellowship with Jehovah. The Moral Law was seen to be the supreme tie between God and man; the foundation was securely laid upon which future legislation could be built up, and the great ethical principles were enunciated which the prophets afterwards developed. In this ethical basis of Mosaism lies its claim to be an important factor in the development of a universal religion. What was of permanent significance in Mosaism was the paramount place of the Moral Law. By placing the ten commandments in its forefront it made good its claim to be an everlasting covenant; it taught and laid down the moral conditions of religious character, not only for its own time, but for all time. It was a step in religious history of which we can even now but imperfectly measure the greatness. ¶ Hebraism has its faults and dangers; still, the intense and convinced energy with which the Hebrew, both of the Old and of the New Testament, threw himself upon his ideal of righteousness, and which inspired the incomparable definition of the great Christian virtue, faith,—the substantiation of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen,—this energy of devotion to its ideal has belonged to Hebraism alone. As our idea of perfection widens beyond the narrow limits to which the over-rigour of Hebraising has tended to confine it, we shall yet come again to Hebraism for that devout energy in embracing our ideal which alone can give to man the happiness of doing what he knows. “If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them.”—The last word for infirm humanity will always be that. For this word, reiterated with a power now sublime, now affecting, but always admirable, our race will, as long as the world lasts, return to Hebraism; and the Bible, which preaches this word, will for ever remain, as Goethe called it, not only a national book, but the Book of the Nations. 4. Let us sum up the character and life of Moses in the words of another grand and ardent soul, subdued, like his own, by the marvellous dealings with him of the Highest:—“This Moses, humble in refusing so great a service; resigned in undertaking, faithful in discharging, unwearied in fulfilling it; vigilant in governing his people; resolute in correcting them, ardent in loving them, and patient in bearing with them; the intercessor for them with the God whom they provoked—this Moses—such and so great a man—we love, we admire, and, so far as may be, imitate.