It is also observable that writers, speaking of themselves in the third person, use a sort of reserve in all such self-descriptions. The admirable historian just mentioned, alludes to himself in two or three passages only of his immortal work, and with the utmost modesty and taste, though he held an important command as admiral in the war which he describes, and received the honour of ostracism from his democratic countrymen. But when we recur to the Hebrew Pentateuch, these two indications of authorship altogether fail us. Moses is invariably described in the third person, and, as three-fourths of the book concern him most intimately, it is impossible to conceive that the book could have been written by him without betraying some indication that he was the author.

This, then, is the second objection which Internal Evidence furnishes against Moses being the author of the Pentateuch, namely the manner in which as the author of that book he would be made to speak of himself. There is not a single passage in which can be found the most distant hint that Moses himself was its author. On the contrary the whole tenor of the book exhibits Moses as described by another person living in a later age, and some passages may be found which, if supposed to have been written by Moses, would attribute to him a vain-glorious character, which is highly inconsistent with his known virtues, but would be appropriate from the pen of a later writer, who wished to exalt and panegyrize the great law-giver to whom their nation owed its political existence. The following passages are instances of panegyric on Moses, which would much detract from our opinion of his modesty, if we could suppose them to have proceeded from his own pen :

EXOD. xi, 3. And the Lord gave the people favour in the sight of the Egyptians. Moreover the man Moses was very great in the land of Egypt, in the sight of Pharaoh's servants, and in the sight of the people.

NUMBERS Xii, 3-8. Now the man Moses was very meek, above all

the men which were upon the face of the earth. And the Lord spake &c.........My servant Moses is not so, who is faithful in all mine house. With him will I speak mouth to mouth, even apparently, and not in dark speeches; and the similitude of the Lord shall he behold: wherefore then were ye not afraid to speak against my servant Moses.

DEUTER. xxxiii, 1. And this is the blessing, wherewith Moses the man of God blessed the children of Israel before his death. And he said "The Lord came from Sinai, and rose up from Seir unto them; he shined forth from mount Paran, and he came with ten thousands of saints from his right hand went a fiery law for them. Yea he loved the people; all his saints are in thy hand: and they sat down at thy feet; every one shall receive of thy words. Moses com

manded us a law, even the inheritance of the congregation of Jacob. And he was king in Jeshurun, when the heads of the people and the tribes of Israel were gathered together.

To these passages may be added one more, which seems to belong to the same class, and furnishes a singular mode of expression if we suppose it to come from Moses speaking of himself and his brother.

EXOD. vi, 26. 27. These are that Aaron and Moses, to whom the Lord said, "Bring out the children of Israel from the land of Egypt according to their armies." These are they which spake to Pharaoh king of Egypt, to bring out the children of Israel from Egypt: these are that Moses and Aaron.

3. A book more ancient than the Pentateuch quoted by the writer of the Pentateuch.

The writer of the Pentateuch quotes a more ancient work, which yet had for its subject the same events that are related in the Pentateuch. This appears from the following passage in the book of Numbers.

NUMBERS XXI, 11. And they journeyed from Oboth, and pitched at Ije-abarim, in the wilderness which is before Moab toward the sunrising. From thence they removed, and pitched in the valley of Zared. From thence they removed, and pitched on the other side of Arnon, which is in the wilderness that cometh out of the coasts of the Amorites for Arnon is the border of Moab, between Moab and the Amorites. Wherefore it is said in the book of the wars of the Lord, "What he did in the Red Sea, and in the brooks of Arnon."

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V. Anachronism concerning the enmity of the Egyptians towards shepherds.

In Genesis, xlvi, 34, it is said as a reason for the Israelites being placed in the land of Goshen, that "every shepherd is an abomination to the Egyptians." But it appears from every other part of the history of Joseph and Pharaoh, that there was no such enmity between them. This is also the opinion of Dr Shuckford; whose account of the matter is as follows:

There is indeed one passage in Genesis, which seems to intimate that there was that religious hatred, which the Egyptians were afterwards charged with, paid to creatures even in the days of Joseph; for we are informed that he put his brethren upon telling Pharaoh their profession, in order to have them placed in the land of Goshen, for, or because, Every shepherd is an abomination to the Egyptians, Gen. xlvi, 34.” I must freely acknowledge, that I cannot satisfy myself about the meaning of this passage; I cannot see that shepherds were really at this time an abomination to the Egyptians; for Pharaoh himself had his shepherds, and when he ordered Joseph to place his brethren in the land of Goshen, he was so far from disapproving of their employment, that he ordered him, if he knew of any men of activity amongst them, that he should make them rulers over his cattle; nay the Egyptians were at this time shepherds themselves, as well as the Israelites, for we are told, when their money failed, they brought their cattle of all sorts unto Joseph, to exchange them for corn, and among the rest, their flocks of the same kind with those which the Israelites were to tell Pharaoh that it was their profession to take care of, as will appear to any one that will consult the Hebrew text in the places referred to. Either therefore we must take the expression that every shepherd was an abomination to the Egyptians, to mean no more than that they thought meanly of the employment, that it was a lazy, idle, and unactive profession, as Pharaoh seemed to question, whether there were any men of activity amongst them, when he heard what their trade was; or, if we take the words to signify a religious aversion to them, which does indeed seem to be the true meaning of the expression from the use made of it in other places of Scripture, then I do not see how it is reconcilable with Pharaoh's inclination to employ them himself, or with the Egyptians being many of them at this time of the same profession

themselves, which the heathen writers agree with Moses in supposing them to be. [Diod. Sic. lib. i.]

The learned have observed that there are several interpolations in the books of the Scriptures, which were not the words of the Sacred Writers. Some persons, affecting to shew their learning, when they read over the ancient MSS., would sometimes put a short remark in the margin, which they thought might give a reason for, or clear the meaning of some expression in the text against which they placed it, or to which they adjoined it; and from hence it happened now and then, that the transcribers from manuscripts so remarked upon, did, through mistake, take a marginal note or remark into the text, imagining it to be a part of it. Whether Moses might not end his period in this place with the words that ye may dwell in the land of Goshen; and whether what follows, for every shepherd is an abomination to the Egyptians, may not have been added to the text this way, is entirely submitted to the judgment of the learned. CONNECTION, Book V, vol. i, p. 341.

The learned writer of this extract is more correct in his

statement of the difficulty than in its solution. It is a principle in criticism to consider a book as free from interpolation, until it is proved that interpolations have certainly been made. The charge of interpolation is brought against the books of the Old Testament, for no other reason than to reduce them into harmony with the preconceived opinion that they were written by the authors to whom they are commonly ascribed. In the present instance there has been no interpolation. The compiler, relating the honours paid to the family of Jacob in Egypt, and endeavouring to harmonize them with the state of things. in his own times, 1000 years later, when the Egyptians, by their religious absurdities, had been made to entertain an enmity towards shepherds, has given us a description which, in this particular, is inconsistent with itself. In short the Egyptians held shepherds in aversion in the fifth, but not in the fifteenth, century before the Christian era.

V. Anachronism that Moses should record his own death. There are certain passages in the Pentateuch, neither few in number nor ambiguous in meaning, which prove

that Moses was not the writer of that book, and that it could not have been written until several hundred years after his time; events are there mentioned which could not be recorded by Moses, because they did not happen during his life-time.

The most striking of these anachronisms occurs in the last chapter of Deuteronomy, where the death of Moses is related. The whole chapter must be transcribed, because it bears in it the most complete refutation of every expedient which has been had recourse to for solving the anomaly that an author should record his own death.

And Moses went up from the plains of Moab unto the mountain of Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, that is over against Jericho. And the Lord shewed him all the land of Gilead, unto Dan, and all Naphtali, and the land of Ephraim,and Manasseh, and all the land of Judah, unto the utmost sea, and the south, and the plain of the valley of Jericho, the city of palm trees, unto Zoar. And the Lord said unto him "This is the land which I sware unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and uuto Jacob, saying, I will give it unto thy seed: I have caused thee to see it with thine eyes, but thou shalt not go over thither.

So Moses the servant of the Lord died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the Lord. And He buried him in a valley in the land of Moab, over against Beth-peor: but no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day. And Moses was an hundred and twenty years old when he died his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated. And the children of Israel wept for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty days so the days of weeping and mourning for Moses were ended.

And Joshua the son of Nun was full of the spirit of wisdom; for Moses had laid his hands upon him: and the children of Israel hearkened unto him, and did as the Lord commanded Moses. And there arose not a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face, in all the signs and the wonders, which the Lord sent him to do in the land of Egypt to Pharaoh, and to all his servants, and to all his land, and in all that mighty hand and in all the great terror which Moses shewed in the sight of all Israel.

As it is impossible for a writer to relate his own death, those who maintain that the Pentateuch is the work of Moses, make an exception in favour of the last chap