ment. We pass by all those in silence, which are vitiated by rationalistic sentiments, or even worse. The Lectures on the Theology of the Old Testament, by Steudel (1840), and those by Hävernick (1848), both of them posthumous publications, stand on believing and evangelical ground, although allowance must be made in both cases for peculiarities of individual views. The essays by Hengstenberg on the theology of the books of Moses, in his Authentie des Pentateuchs, and on the theology of the Psalms, at the close of his Commentary, are among the most valuable contributions to these portions of the general subject.

ART. V.-The Prophet Obadiah, Expounded by Charles Paul Caspari. Leipzig, 1842, pp. 145.

THE name of Caspari, at present licentiate and Lector of Theology in the University of Christiania, has been more than once mentioned, and his labours referred to in our pages, but we are desirous of introducing him more fully to the acquaintance of our readers. The treatise, whose title we have placed at the head of this article, is not the most recent of his publications; in fact, it is one of the earliest, but it is the one which best answers our purpose, being at once brief and complete in itself. Though Obadiah is the shortest book in the Old Testament, it yet presents questions enough in the way of criticism and exposition to furnish a fair field for the abilities of him that undertakes to solve them; while it cannot fail to bring out as clearly as a book of larger compass, the method which he pursues, and the system which he adopts. The volume before us was announced as the first of a series of commentaries on the prophets, to be prepared by himself, in concert with his fellowstudent and intimate friend, Delitzsch, whose exposition of Habakkuk appeared the next year. But as we know of no commentary since from the pen of Caspari, and as that most recently issued by Delitzsch is not upon one of the prophets, and as meanwhile they have both left Leipsic, Caspari to go to Christiania, and Delitzsch to become Professor of Theology in the University of Rostock, it is probable that their original project may have been abandoned, at least for a time.*

Another series of publications, which they commenced to issue together, appeared under the name of "Biblico-theological, and Apologetico-critical Studies." The first of these

Since the above was written, Caspari has issued a Commentary on Micah, noticed in our last number (p. 273.)

was the "Biblico-prophetical Theology" of Delitzsch, containing an account of Christian Crusius and his labours in that field, together with a discussion of the principles advanced in the recent works of Hofmann and Baumgarten. The second contained Contributions to the Introduction to Isaiah by Caspari, in which he examines various questions relating to the first six chapters of that prophecy, as preliminary to the commentary which he is preparing. He has published, besides, another treatise of kindred character on the Syro-Ephraimitic War, under Jotham and Ahaz, and an Arabic Grammar, designed for students of the language, who want something less copious than the grammars of De Sacy and Ewald, yet not so meagre as the generality of the manuals previously in use. Of Obadiah, as of some others of the minor prophets, nothing is recorded but the name, and that only in the title to his prophecy. The traditionary notices which variously identify him with the governor of Ahab's house (1 Kings xviii. 3); with the captain of fifty spared by Elijah (2 Kings i. 13); or with the husband of the woman mentioned (2 Kings iv. 1); or which declare him to have been a proselyte from Edom, are entirely unreliable, and owe their origin to an endeavour to elicit by conjectural combination a knowledge of the prophet, which authentic accounts do not furnish. The very period in which he lived is matter of dispute. As might have been anticipated, this furnished a fine opportunity for German eriticism to display itself, which is never more confident in its conclusions than when it has least evidence on which to base them. Unfortunately, however, its varying results are calculated to inspire any thing but confidence in lookers on. Obadiah has been pronounced with equal positiveness to be the very earliest and the very latest of the prophets whose writings form part of the canon, while almost every assignable intermediate position has been allotted to him by one or other of those who have undertaken to speak oracularly upon the subject. Caspari has been content to take the less ambitious, but not less safe method of acquiescing in a date already furnished, rather than inventing a new one. The only external evidence which bears upon the point is the position which this prophecy occupies in the collection of the minor prophets, according to which Obadiah succeeds Amos, and precedes Jonah and Micah. The correctness of this our author strenuously defends; and if he has not rigidly proved it, he has certainly shown that no sufficient reason exists in the present case for departing from it. It is on all hands admitted, as is indeed evident on a bare inspection, that in the arrangement of the minor prophets some respect was had, at least in the general, to the chronological order. The only question that can

possibly arise is whether this was carried out strictly in detail. Those of the earliest period come first; those shortly before the exile, next; those succeeding the exile, last. All of them that have their dates indicated in the title appear in their proper order. The analogy of the arrangement of the greater prophets, and the former prophets of the Hebrew canon, also favours the conclusion that the succession is a chronological one. So does the traditional testimony preserved by Jerome.* And as for the internal proofs which have been alleged as at variance with it, Caspari maintains (and this is also the view taken of the same subject by Hengstenberg, Hävernick, and other eminent scholars) that in no case is there a necessity of supposing the chronological order to have been departed from; that the presumption in favour of its having been adhered to throughout is heightened by the impossibility of assigning any reasons of a tropical kind, which could have led to its abandonment in the cases adduced; and that the assumption of the collector himself being in error, and especially of our competency to correct it if he were, is wholly inadmissible.

Among the internal grounds relied upon for the determination of the period to which Obadiah is to be assigned, the first concerns the relation which this prophecy bears to a parallel one in Jeremiah, chap. xlix. The coincidence in thought and even language (compare Obad. verses 1-4, with Jer. xlix. 14–16; Obad. verses 5, 6, with Jer. xlix. 9, 10; Obad. verse 8, with Jer. xlix. 7), is too great to have been a casual resemblance in the utterance of thoughts, independently conceived by different minds. There are in this, as in all similar cases of Scripture criticism, but three supposable ways of accounting for the fact; and here, as in every other instance, all three have had their advocates. Either Jeremiah borrowed from Obadiah, or Obadiah from Jeremiah, or both alike from some preceding prophet. It would no doubt be thought by most persons out of Germany, that the settlement of such a question as this in the absence of all external proof, even though the passage disputed were far longer than it is, must be involved in great difficulty and uncertainty. Our brethren across the waters, however, have great skill in such matters. If two writers have a single sentence, or even part of a sentence in common, we have scarcely seen the German commentator who would not undertake to say with positiveness with which of them it was original, or whether it was so with either. The art has been practised so long and so generally, that it has come to be reduced to absolute rule. It seems to pass as an unquestioned

"In quibus (prophetarum Scriptis) tempus non profertur in titulo, sub iliis eos regibus prophetâsse, sub quibus et hi, qui ante eos habent titulos, prophetârunt.”— Prol. in XII. Prophet. Min.

principle with the dealers in this species of criticism, that the more brief, unusual, and difficult, and that which is better connected with what precedes and follows, must be the original from which the other is derived. While we might perhaps admit that there was truth or plausibility in this, considered in the general, we can hardly follow the surprising application which we find made of it to the minutest details. When the ground of argument is that Obadiah uses the first person plural in a certain case where Jeremiah has the first person singular, or that the latter inserts the word "for" where the former does not, or says "despised among men" where the former says "greatly despised," we must confess that our lack of discernment is such that we have to wait until the conclusion is drawn before we can suspect what it is going to be; and we cannot even then tell why it might not just as well have been the reverse. We doubt whether such arguments would be considered as going a great way toward settling the priority in the case of compositions that date from modern times. Decidedly the most preposterous thing, however, which has occurred in the endless argument on this subject, is Hitzig's attempt to show that Obadiah, in copying and endeavouring to simplify Jeremiah (whom he decides by a single stroke of his pen to have been the earlier of the two), mistook his meaning, being less skilled in the Hebrew, as we are left to infer, than his modern critic!!

Our author has gone very elaborately into this investigation, and has shown that there is no ground here for departing from the presumption as to Obadiah's age furnished by the criterion already mentioned; but that, on the other hand, if there were any stringency in these arguments as commonly adduced, they would establish Obadiah's priority, not the reverse. At the same time he adduces a number of collateral arguments, which certainly have the effect, taken together, of making the proba bilities incline largely to the side of Obadiah being the original, and Jeremiah the copy.

The idea of both being derived from a common original, may be at once dismissed as having nothing to support it. No one has ever heard of this supposed original; and the arguments adduced for it are of that completely subjective kind which can be asserted or denied by different persons with equal ease. Thus Ewald asserts that the first ten verses of Obadiah are so different from the remainder of the prophecy in language and style, that they must have belonged to a different author and another age. Caspari replies, and most readers of the prophet would probably say the same, that he can see no difference whatever in the language of the two sections.

Regarding the question, then, as one lying simply between

Obadiah and Jeremiah, Caspari urges the following considerations in favour of the originality of the former:-1. The prophecies of Jeremiah directed against foreign powers are almost without exception based on those of previous prophets, which renders it easy to suppose the like to have been the case in the present instance. 2. In those parts of Jeremiah's prediction against Edom, which are not common to him with Obadiah, are many expressions which occur more or less frequently in the course of his book, and are characteristic of his style, but none such occur in Obadiah. 3. The verses in question form in Obadiah one connected passage, verses 1-8; in Jeremiah they are more dispersed. 4. They are more closely related to the context in Obadiah. 5. In his prophecy, too, they are "in part more brief and rapid, in part more difficult and abrupt, in part bolder and more lively, in part more regular and rounded." If this argumentation is successful, it not only leaves the date previously arrived at undisturbed, but adds a confirmation in so far as it determines it not to have been later than the fourth year of Jehoiakim, at which time this prediction of Jeremiah seems to have been uttered.

Another point affecting the date of the prophecy is found in verses 11-16. In those verses are described sore calamities brought upon Jerusalem by foreign powers, in which Edom insultingly exulted, and which they even aggravated by acts of positive hostility. The question at once arises, what historical fact is here intended? and was it past or future at the time of the prophet? Three different opinions are here possible, and have been actually maintained: 1. That the event referred to was the capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, and that it is described as past. 2. That it was the capture by Nebuchadnezzar, but the description is prophetic; the event lay yet in the future. 3. That it describes one of the previous captures of Jerusalem, or calamities that befel its inhabitants before the final overthrow from incursions of hostile invaders, e.g., that recorded 2 Chron. xxi. 16, 17, or that 2 Chron. xxv. 23, 24, or that 2 Chron. xxviii. 17, 18. Of these suppositions only the first is inconsistent with the conclusion to which we have already come, as to the period when Obadiah lived. Caspari adopts the second view stated above, and argues from the strength of the expressions employed that nothing less than the utter overthrow of the city, as it took place under the Chaldeans, can be intended. That this was still future to the prophet, and not past, he considers as established,-1. By the exhortations, verses 12-14, which seem to be most naturally explained on the supposition of the actions being not yet performed; and, 2. By the general terms in which the prophecy * In order to appreciate this argument the Hebrew must be consulted, which reads,