and not of ritual, he portrays the crowd of blessings. And then, in the full strength of oratorical denunciation, he goes again over the ground of the curses. Three times in this most terrific of speeches does the wave of holy passion rise and fall. At first the exuberance of the woes enumerated overpowers our attention; the musically parallel sentences, which in other speeches make perorations, here come for intervals of relief. Another stream of denunciation brings the serving the LORD with joyfulness, and with gladness of heart by reason of the abundance of all things, into contrast with the serving of the enemy in hunger, and in thirst, and in nakedness, and in want of all things; and the siege laid by this mystic enemy is extended in picture to the last horrors the mind can conceive. Yet another flood of speech begins with the 'glorious and fearful' Name; and there passes before us the fading of the life of promise into plagues and exile; in exile the trembling heart, and failing of eyes, and pining of soul; until for a final climax the original salvation of Israel is reversed in a voluntary returning to the land of bondage, the people selling themselves to their enemies for bondmen and bondwomen, a climax yet more final than this, for "no man shall buy you." The fourth oration has the same locality, the same audience, and the same general appeal. Yet it is distinctive. Between Orations III and IV the book takes the greatest stride that can be taken in religious development, the advance from merely national to personal religion. Moses reviews the different orders of people before him, all assembled to make covenant with God: heads, tribes, elders, officers, all the men of Israel, the little ones, the wives, the strangers: he thinks of others who shall hereafter take part in such solemn acts. His appeal is, whether there be any man or woman, any family or tribe, nourishing evil in their hearts, and trusting to escape in the general righteousness. He proclaims how the sinful individual shall be separated for evil, the land of a sinful tribe overthrown in a curse. But he adds words of mercy; he urges how the word is not afar off but in the mouth and heart of the people; and he makes solemn appeals to choose life and not death. There remains the sad personal farewell: though Moses speaks of his failing frame, none but words of strength and courage are on his lips as he installs Joshua in his place, and retires from his leadership for ever. From the parallelism of oratory we rise to the parallelism of Hebrew verse, and Moses seeks to embalm in poetry the message of his life to Israel. Round the central thought of the Rock of Israel, immovable in his faithfulness and judgment, we have successive pictures of Divine tenderness, and rich bounty, of Jeshurun waxing fat and kicking, of kindled vengeance heaping up mischiefs and destructions, of blindness and utter misery, of God returning to avenge his people in their last extremity, while the nations rejoice in their restoration. The Song has commenced the final day of Deuteronomy : in the course of this day the long-expected summons comes. The whole people understand the mysterious doom, and line the route by which Moses sets out on the journey from which there will be no return. Like a father laying his hands from a death-bed on the heads of his children, the departing leader blesses the several tribes, as he passes along: each tribe gathers up the words spoken to it, to be treasured along with its battle cries and its folk lore, as part of the tribal heritage. Then turning to behold the whole multitude for the last time, Moses lifts his hands in general blessing: There is none like unto God, O Jeshurun, Who rideth upon the heaven for thy help, And underneath are the everlasting arms. Simple, bare prose tells the rest: the solitary ascent into the mount, the long gaze over the land of promise, the death. But no wealth of poetic imagination could have made a close for Deuteronomy more harmonious with the body of the book. The life of the lonely leader has passed out into solitude: and "no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day." The text in this, as in other volumes of the Modern Reader's Bible, is that of the Revised Version, for which I express my obligations to the University Presses of Oxford and Cambridge. The matter is divided according to Orations and Prefaces: a Reference Table at the end connects these with the chapters and verses of the Bible. χχίν |