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SCRIPTURE DIFFICULTIES

EXAMINED.

THE POST-MOSAIC HISTORIES.

THE books composing these histories comprise Joshua to Esther, and embrace a period of 1017 years, according to the Usherian Chronology adopted by the English translators; i. e., from B.C. 1451-434: A.M. 2553-3570. The first book takes the Israelites into the promised land, after a wandering in the wilderness, backwards and forwards, for the long space of forty years, and the last finds them in captivity, at the time when a plan was laid for their extirpation by Haman, the minister of Ahasuerus, - the Artaxerxes Longimanus of profane history,-who subsequently granted permission for the rebuilding of the walls of the holy city, the commencement and completion of which great work is narrated in the book of Nehemiah. Esther is not in our version placed in its chronological order, for it should precede Ezra and Nehemiah, as it does in the Hebrew Bibles. In the English Bible this book concludes with the third verse of the tenth chapter, but the Septuagint and the Vulgate add ten more verses to this chapter, and six additional chapters to the book. These additions were never extant in the Hebrew, however, and are justly rejected as apocryphal by Jews and Protestants.

2

THE BOOK OF JOSHUA.

THIS book forms a proper continuation of the Pentateuch, taking up the history where the last of those books leaves it, comprising a period of about seventeen years. The passage, which includes the 7th, 8th, and 9th verses of the first chapter, shows how entirely it rests upon the basis of the Mosaic books, especially of the book of Deuteronomy."This book of the law (which Moses my servant commanded thee, ver. 7,) shall not depart out of thy mouth, but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do all that is written therein for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success. Have not I [the Lord, Jehovah], commanded thee."

It is said, however, that this does not testify to the whole of the Pentateuch, but only to single passages that are quoted in it. But this, as Hävernich remarks, is said partly in accordance with the supposition of the correctness of the fragment-hypothesis,* and partly without paying regard to the passages in which, unquestionably, the book of the Law, the book of Moses, etc., is considered as a whole, as in the text, and in viii. 31, 34; xxiii. 6, etc. It is also said that the passages

* See vol. i. pp. 395-408.

xxiv. 26, and iv. 10, show that the book of the Law, which is cited in the book of Joshua, contained additional memoirs not found in the Pentateuch, so that the book there intended is not properly our Pentateuch. But, says Hävernich, the passage xxiv. 26: “Joshua wrote these words in the Book of the Law of God," manifestly supposes the previous existence of such a book (and throughout the whole of Joshua it is quoted in a similar manner), and annexes to it the history of its own age. The passage refers to Deut. xxxi., and means to say that Joshua followed the example of Moses, and annexed to the book of the Law what he had himself recorded; even as it is clear from the context, that he likewise deposited it in the holiest of all, beside the Ark of the Covenant. The passage, iv. 10, occasions still less difficulty, if correctly understood. Joshua, it is said, caused the passage over the Jordan to be performed, as Jehovah commanded him, and as Moses gave him (Joshua) command. Thus it is evidently special orders, given to Joshua, that are spoken of. But the Pentateuch also mentions, that Moses not only consecrated Joshua to be his successor by the imposition of hands, but also furnished him with commands and instructions (Numb. xxvii. 23; Deut. iii. 28; xxxi. 23), without, however, communicating the latter to us. The exact obedience with which Joshua fulfilled these directions, is plainly what is here spoken of; and thus all appearance, even, in favour of the interpretation of our opponents vanishes.* As to the desperate hypothesis of the late composition of the book of Joshua, it

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not only entirely fails, upon the evidence adduced for it, but, as the same intelligent critic remarks, those who urge it, not only gain nothing, but actu"For, after all," says he, ally lose by it. 66 we still have in this book a memorial, which, if composed later than the Pentateuch, receives a complete recognition from this book. Supposing that the Pentateuch is not a genuine Mosaic writing, then the deception which has been practised with it is an unheard-of deception, and one that extends much farther. Another book has then formed the continuation of its untrue and suspicious history: the spirit of falsehood has then spread epidemically, and has not been satisfied with imposing on the world one of its productions, but has contrived to build systematically on such a foundation. This makes the supposition of our opponents more extensive and more enigmatical: it must then be explained how that which, according to them, was brought out in so weak and wretched a way, could assume for itself, and maintain, the force of truth with such victorious power that, immediately after its origin, it meets with such recognition as truth only can have-such as falsehood, even when most cunningly contrived, never can secure: which makes our book an enigma in the history of all books."

The impugners of the sacred books, however, never attempt to relieve their hypotheses from the difficulties which attach to them, and which are generally much more serious and incapable of solution than anything they object to in the Bible. There is no serious objection to be urged against what has been the tradition of both the Jewish and the Christian church, namely, that this book was mainly compiled by Joshua himself, and completed by one

of his inspired successors. (See chap. xiv. 6—12; xviii.; xxii. 18—30; xxiii. 24; xxiv. 25, etc.)

CHAPTER I.

"Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, that have I given unto you, as I said unto Moses. From the wilderness and this Lebanon even unto the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, and unto the great sea toward the going down of the sun, shall be your coast."Ver. 3, 4.

THE boundaries of Canaan are here fixed towards the four quarters of the heavens, as in Deut. xi. 24; with this difference, that here, the two opposite limits are classed together, and thus east and west are opposed to north and south, whereas in Deuteronomy the western boundary alone is opposed to the other three. In Exod. xxiii. 31, we find the boundaries classed in pairs, but the points given determine in reality only the western and eastern limits "From the Red Sea to the Sea of the Philistines," and "from the desert unto the river" (Euphrates). All these passages, which are based upon Gen. xv. 18, partake, as divine promises, of a rhetorical character, and merely indicate, in a general way, certain well known points that are to constitute the limits within which the land given to the Israelites would lie. This could not give rise to any uncertainty as to its actual extent, since the nations whose territories were to be given to them for an inheritance, are always mentioned in connection with the land. There is no such discrepancy as some have alleged between this general description of the land, and the descriptions of the actual limits (Numb. xxxiv. 1, etc.; Josh. xiii.xix.) Hemdeber is the great desert to the south,

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