Footnotes CERTAIN portions of the text of Deuteronomy are in the present edition arranged as footnotes. This arrangement is not intended to imply that they are 'glosses,' or in any way of less authenticity than the rest. The suggestion is merely that these sentences show a parenthetic remoteness from their context such as in a modern book would be signified by the use of footnotes. This usage has been more fully stated in a note to the volume of the Modern Reader's Bible containing the Wisdom of Solomon, page 175. TITLE: DEUTERONOMY The title 'Deuteronomy' is a curious one. It is a Greek expression meaning 'second law' or 'repeated law.' In this sense it is used in the Septuagint (chapter xvii. 18), where the R. V. reads: [The king] shall write him a copy of this law in a book, But the Greek of the Septuagint means 'this repetition of the law' [deuteronomion], not copy of this law: and on this mistranslation the traditional title of the book has been founded. TITLE PAGE Verses 1, 2, of chapter i seem to constitute (in modern phrase) a title page' of the whole book. Compare Proverbs volume, page 1. The district so exactly located is the scene of all that comes within the book; the local indication in the title to the fourth oration is general, and does not conflict with the title of the whole in these verses. There is a title page with a similar amount of exactness to the Book of Tobit. Oration I Preface. The point of this brief preface is to define the exact date of the first oration, and so approximately of those which follow, just as the title page to the whole book has exactly defined the place in which these speeches were delivered. When it is recollected that unity is given to Deuteronomy as a literary whole by the idea of its being a Farewell to Israel, then it will seem only natural to find prefatory matter bringing the scene to the final halting-place of Moses with the people, and the final month of the hero's life. To declare this law, saying.. It may be worth while to remind the reader that the word law has a wider sense in biblical than in modern English. Besides what is of the nature of ordinance and commandment it will include histories connected with these (the Law and the Prophets); more than this, the 'law of the Lord' extends to all revealed literature (Psalm i. 2, etc.). So in the present work, the phrase this law in this preface introduces, not actual law, but an oration on the subject of law; and the phrase later on (preface to Oration III) seems to signify the Ceremonial of the Blessing and the Curse (see note). Title of the Oration. It is easy to infer from the clear argument of this first speech the title: MOSES' ANNOUNCEMENT OF HIS DEPOSITION. The historic survey leads up to this point of God's refusal, repeated after Moses' intercession, to allow Moses to lead the people into the land of promise; and the exhortation which makes the rest of the speech takes its rise from the same consideration, that the commandments of Moses can now be neither added to nor diminished, it remains to keep them. Argument of the Oration. 1. Historic survey of the authority wielded by Moses: its supremacy revealed in appointment of subordinates-rebellion against it at Kadesh-barnea led to the thirty-eight years' wandering in the wilderness until the rebellious generation was consumed, Moses himself being involved in the Divine wrath these years spent in peace in the neighbourhood of nations the Israelites were not permitted to touch—then a new era appears in which panic goes before their steps, Moses still ordaining what people to spare and what to exterminate, and dividing the conquered lands- Moses' personal hopes rise with this change of fortune: but God denies his prayer, and finally confirms his deposition. 2. Exhortation. By this deposition Moses' work of lawgiver stands as a complete whole: it remains to obey they must remember |