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GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
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GENESIS
AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
TWO DISSERTATIONS.
I. ON THE IMPORT OF THE INTRODUCTORY CHAPTERS OF THE
BOOK OF GENESIS.
II. ON THE USE OF THE NAMES OF GOD IN THE BOOK OF GENESIS,
AND ON THE UNITY OF ITS AUTHORSHIP.
REVISED EDITION.
WITH NOTICE OF ANIMADVERSIONS BY THE BISHOP OF NATAL.
BY
JOHN QUARRY, D.D.
RECTOR OF DONOUGHMORE AND PREBENDARY OF CLOYNE.

PUR
SI
MUOVE
W
G4
MDCCCLXXIII,
Bray
WILLIAMS AND NORGATE,
14, HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, LONDON;
AND 20, SOUTH FREDERICK STREET, EDINBURGH.
}
:
HERTFORD:
STEPHEN AUSTIN AND SONS, PRINTERS.
!
10-16-37
11-3-37 J, A
PREFACE.
IN pursuing the line of interpretation which has been
applied, in the first of the following Dissertations, to the com-
mencing chapters of the book of Genesis, the Author has been
guided by internal indications, and has followed the lead of
great men in all ages of the Church. He has taken pains to
show this, as the opinions which have been cited were adopted
before the discoveries of modern Science had alarmed the
believing, or suggested doubts to the sceptical. Convinced
that the scientific conclusions, which have thus caused difficulty
to the Biblical student, are in the main indisputable, and per-
ceiving that the foretokenings of future discovery all point in
the same direction, he has thought it necessary at the outset
to show the unsatisfactory nature of the various attempts that
have been made to reconcile the Scriptural representations with
the results of scientific inquiry. He has done this in the belief
that by drawing men away from all such efforts he was best
serving the cause, which, in common with the authors of these
attempts, he has had at heart. And in endeavouring to withdraw
the Scriptural statements altogether from the range of physical
interpretation, he has had in view both the greater respect in
which the men of science may thus be disposed to hold the
vi
PREFACE.
documents containing these statements, and the relief of those
who reverence the Holy Scriptures from the embarrassment
occasioned by the discoveries already made, and the appre-
hensions awakened by the ever renewed intimations of fresh
discovery. Having entered on this discussion, he felt that he
could not consistently pause, until he had reached the more
firm ground of the literal historic narrative contained in this
book.
If, in the earlier Dissertation just mentioned, the Author
has shown himself not insensible to the necessity of a free,
though not irreverent, handling of his subject, he thinks the
second will be found sufficiently conservative of the integrity
and originality of the book of Genesis, in opposition to the
modern theories by which it has been disintegrated in a
manner wholly inconsistent with the respect in which it has
been held as a part of the Sacred Canon. In combating these
theories he has thought it enough to direct his attention to
the principal English representatives of the two chief sections,
into which the school of critics who adopt these views is
divided,—Dr. Davidson, who supports the more complex theory
of multiplied authorship, and the Bishop of Natal, who takes
a simpler view of the composition of the book, but applies a
criticism not the less destructive of its character. The minute
analysis of Bishop Colenso has rendered necessary a patient and
careful examination, which the Author fears will seem for-
bidding to many readers, but without which he could not
attempt, with any hope of success, to rebut the arguments relied
on. At the same time he trusts that the discussion will be
found to be relieved by several observations of general interest
PREFACE.
vii
to the student of the Bible, and by many results of no little
moment, apart from the questions more immediately under
consideration.
If the result of the whole investigation may be thought
rather negative in its character, the Author begs it may be
remembered, that this is in a manner the necessary consequence
of the nature of the inquiry itself. He trusts, however, that
he has been able to arrive at not a few positive proofs of the
integrity of the book. And if he has in any measure con-
tributed towards preserving to our Bibles this book of Genesis,
in its wonted place and old esteem, with its hallowed associa-
tions and its striking and beautiful significance to the pious and
reflecting, and intact for all its religious uses, his labour has
not been in vain. If he has not pointed out that significance,
or dwelt upon those religious uses, it was not because he was
insensible of their value, but because they lay beyond his im-
mediate scope, and to have adverted to them would have too
much swelled a work already larger than he desired.
MIDDLETON RECTORY,
October, 1866.
Besides the notice of Bishop Colenso's Animadversions,
and the correction of a few verbal and typographical errors, the
only changes now made are the omission of a few lines of little
moment in pp. 30, 33, and 34 for the sake of room, and the
introduction of a few additions in those pages and elsewhere,
chiefly in the form of notes. All such new matter is inclosed
in brackets, and is contained in the following pages :-viz., 4,
24, 25, 30, 31, 33, 34, 68, 139, 241, 251, 252, and 418. It
consists mainly of illustrations and authorities.
DONOUGHMORE RECTORY,
Easter, 1873.
*
CORRIGENDA.
At p. 271, line 3, for "Bazaleel" read "Bezaleel."
At p. 301, line 21, for "Borytians" read "Berytians."
At p. 310, line 17, for "μooσóplαpтov" read “μovoóp@aprov." And line 32 for
. אלהים read אהלים
At p. 320, line 2 of note, for "" read "me."
At p. 462, line 5, for "§ 13" read "§ 14," and correct the numbers of the two
following Sections accordingly.
:
CONTENTS.
DISSERTATION I.
ON THE IMPORT OF THE INTRODUCTORY CHAPTERS
OF THE BOOK OF GENESIS.
CHAPTERS I. II. 1–3.—THE SIX DAYS' CREATION.
I. Difficulties arising from modern Geology, and unsuccessful efforts to
remove them
VII. Works of Creation reckoned in the order of a Natural Classification
VIII. Relation between the Works and Days
IX. Conclusions recapitulated
X. Representation of Creation in this Passage designed to counteract
Idolatrous tendencies
16
II. Like difficulties formerly caused by Astronomical Discoveries
III. Proper subjects of Revelation, and Province of Revealed Religion
IV. Internal Indications adverse to a strictly literal interpretation......
V. Like Indications observable on comparison with the succeeding Passage.. 23
VI. Stream of opinion adverse to the literal acceptation, traced back to the
times of the Old Testament.
XI. Enumeration of the Days intended with reference to the Institution of the
Sabbath
....
XII. Concluding Remarks...
Remarks on some Expressions in this Passage bearing on the foregoing
Discussion
PAGE
III. Anthropistic representations of God..
IV. The Mystical Trees and the Forbidden Fruit...
V. The River of Eden, the Garden, and the Formation of the Woman.........
VI. The Symbolical Tempter and the Fall
...
1
6
12
29
42
46
52
55
CHAPTER II. 4-IV.-THE GENERATIONS OF HEAVENS AND EARTH.
2. 1.-PARADISE AND THE FALL. CH. II. 4-III.
I. Peculiarities distinguishing this from the preceding Passage..
II. Tentative and Suppletory Character of Divine operations as here
represented......
62
71
72
87
94
104
108
116
123
X
CONTENTS.
i
VII. The Penal Sentences..
VIII. Unity of Character in the whole Passage, and the Historical Truths under-
lying the Mystical Representation
2.-OFFSPRING OF FALLEN MAN. CH. IV.
I. Difference of Character between this and the preceding Section
II. Eve's Words at the Birth of Cain
III. Origin of Animal Sacrifice
IV. Lamech's Homicide
…….
V. Origin of sundry Institutions, Customs, and Practices. Beginning to call
on the name of Jehovah
VI. Concluding Remarks
Remarks on some of the subsequent Narratives—
Genealogies from Adam to Terah
The Sons of God and Daughters of Men........
The Deluge
.....
Dispersion of Men and Confusion of Tongues..
The Cities of the Plain...
The Offering of Isaac
Jacob's Farewell Address to his Sons.
………….
173
177
182
190
206
210
229
Error of the Translators in connecting Gen. ii. 3 and 4 247
Selden and Bede on the order of the Planetary names
Note A. (page 24, line 33.)
Note B. (page 66, note.)
of Week Days
Note C. (page 126, line 15.) Hugh Farmer and Professor Mansel on Miraculous
Powers of Evil Spirits
DISSERTATION II.
··
GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS.
I. The Original Hebrew Text........
11. Names of God, Generic and Proper
Use of Elohim with the Article
III. Introduction of the Name Jehovah
Jehovah not a Phoenician God
IV. Organic Structure and Divisions of the Book……………..
··
****
SPECIAL EXAMINATION.
I. THE EXORDIUM.
Ch. i. ii. 1-3. Elohistic Account of Creation
•
···
PAGE
131
………
140
ON THE USE OF THE NAMES OF GOD IN THE BOOK OF
GENESIS, AND ON THE UNITY OF ITS AUTHORSHIP.
155
158
160
164
166
169
248
248
255
264
270
291
300
316
342
CONTENTS.
xi
§ 1.
§ 2.
§ 1.
§ 2.
II. THE GENERATIONS OF HEAVENS AND EARTH.
Paradise and the Fall
Children of Adam, and Descent in the line of Cain...
Ch. ii. 4-iii.
Ch. iv.
III.—THE BOOK OF THE GENERATIONS OF ADAM.
§ 3.
§ 4.
§ 5.
§ 1. Ch. vi. 9-ix. 17. The History of the Deluge
§ 6.
Ch. v. The Descent from Adam to Noah and his Sons
Ch. vi. 1-8.
§ 7.
§ 8.
350
Degeneracy of Men, and God's determination to destroy them 352
IV. THE GENERATIONS OF NOAH.
I. Supposition of two Independent Narratives combined
II. Theory of Jehovistic Interpolations
III. Usage of the LXX. and Samaritans as regards the names of God in
this Passage, and Peculiarity of Character that connects the whole 389
§ 2. Ch. ix. 18-29. Subsequent History of Noah and his Sons
392
V.-THE GENERATIONS OF THE SONS OF NOAH.
§ 1. Ch. x. The descendants of Noah after their Nations and Languages...... 395
§ 2. Ch. xi. 1-9. The Confusion of Tongues......
396
Ch. xi. 10-26. Descendants of Shem to Abraham
* Additional Remarks on Chapters i.-xi. 26.
··
(1.) On the Numerical Prevalence of the Names, Elohim and Jehovah
(2.) Phrases supposed to distinguish the Elohist and Jehovist
(3.) Resemblances between the parts ascribed to Different Authors
VI. THE GENERATIONS OF SHEM.
Sp
VII. THE GENERATIONS OF TERAH.
§ 1. Ch. xi. 27-xii. 4. From the birth of Abraham to his Departure from
Haran
...
...
..
………… ·
§ 2. Ch. xii. 4 last clause-20. From the Departure from Haran to the 415
Arrival in Egypt.
Ch. xiii. From the Return to Canaan to the Settlement at Mamre
Ch. xiv. The War of the Kings
Ch. xv. xvi. 2. The Promise of a Son notwithstanding Abram's complaint
of Childlessness.....
Ch. xix. 29-38. Lot and his Daughters.………….
Ch. XX., xxi. 4.
....
Ch. xvi. 3-15. Abram's Union with Hagar, her Flight, and the Birth
of Ishmael
Ch. xvi. 16, xvii. 1-23.
Ch. xvii. 24-xix. 28.
The Covenant of Circumcision
Visit of the Three Angels; Intercession for the
Cities of the Plain; their Destruction
Abraham at Gerar, to the Birth of Isaac
Dismissal of Hagar and Ishmael
The Covenant at Beersheba
...
PAGE
344
348
§ 9.
§ 10.
§ 11. Ch. xxi. 5-21.
Ch. xxi. 22-32.
§ 12.
§ 13.
Ch. xxi. 33, 34, xxii. 1–19. The Offering of Isaac
§ 14.
Ch. xxii. 20-24, xxiii. Family of Nahor; Death of Sarah; and Purchase
of a Burial Place
360
361
380
398
400
400
402
410
423
429
431
433
440
444
446
453
457
458
462
xii
CONTENTS.
PAGE
§ 15. Ch. xxiv. Mission to provide a Wife for Isaac...
464
§ 16. Ch. xxv. 1-11. Abraham's Family by Keturah; his Death and Burial... 469
VIII.-THE GENERATIONS OF ISHMAEL.
Ch. xxv. 12-18. The Sons of Ishmael; his Age, and Death
§ 1. Ch. xxv. 19-34.
Ch. xxvi. 1-33.
2.
§ 3.
(2.)
(3.)
IX.-THE GENERATIONS OF ISAAC.
Birth of Isaac's Sons, and Sale of the Birthright .... 474
Isaac with Abimelech
476
§ 4 (1.) Ch. xxviii. 5-22. Jacob's Departure to Haran, and Esau's to Ishmael;
Jacob's Dream and Vow at Bethel
Ch. xxvi. 34, 35, xxvii., xxviii. 1-4, Esau's Marriage; the Blessing of
Jacob, and his Mission to Padan-Aram
482
§ 7.
§ 8.
485
488
500
§ 5. Ch. xxxiii. 18-xxxiv. Jacob at Shechem, and the Story of Dinah......... 505
§ 6. Ch. xxxv. 1-8. Return to Bethel
§ 7. Ch. xxxv. 9-29.
Death
Renewal of the name of Israel; Particulars to Isaac's 508
§ 9.
§ 10.
Ch. xxxvi. 1-8. To Esau's parting from Jacob
Ch. xxix.-xxxi. Jacob with Laban......
Ch. xxxii., xxxiii. 1-17. Jacob's Return and Meeting with Esau
Ch. xxxvi. 9-xxxvii. 1. The Edomites
X.—THE GENERATIONS OF ESAU.
...
•••
XI. THE GENERATIONS OF ESAU IN SEIR.
§ 1. Ch. xxxvii. 2-36. Joseph's Sale into Egypt………
§ 2. Ch. xxxviii. The Family of Judah
3.
§ 4.
§ 5.
§ 6.
XI-THE GENERATIONS OF JACOB.
...
...
··
Ch. xxxix. Joseph in Potiphar's House, and cast into Prison
Ch. xl. The Chief Butler and Baker in Prison with Joseph
Ch. xli. 1-45. Pharaoh's Dreams interpreted, and Joseph advanced
Ch. xli. 46-xlii. 4. Joseph's Administration. The Commencement of
the Famine.....
...
Note A. (page 306, line 23.)
Note B. (page 311, line 24.)
Note C. (page 312, line 2.)
Note D. (page 315, line 7.)
§ 11. Ch. 1. Jacob's Funeral; Joseph's Death
Ch. xlii. 5-xlvi. 7. The Descent into Egypt
Ch. xlvi. 8-xlvii. 11. The Children of Israel who came into Egypt,
and their Settlement there
……….
Ch. xlvii. 12-26. Progress of the Famine
Ch. xlviii. 27-xlix. Jacob's Blessing of Joseph's and his own Sons;
his death....
Distinguishing Peculiarities of the Elohist and Jehovist...
...
CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS.
...
…………… ………….
473
516
522
528
535
537
546
549
555
556
563
565
566
575
578
611
631
633
633
634
•
NOTICE
OF THE ANIMADVERSIONS
OF THE BISHOP OF NATAL.
IN "The New Bible Commentary Critically Examined," Bishop
Colenso has spoken of the following work, or rather of its author, as
I take it for granted he has never read the book itself, in terms which
call for a few remarks from me in reply.
In the Preface of Part I. pp. viii. ix., he complains that the Bishop
of Ely has briefly referred to me as having "carefully and elaborately
investigated" the linguistic differences between the Elohistic and
Jehovistic passages of Genesis, instead of making any such investiga-
tion for himself; and again, in p. 72, he makes the same complaint.
I should have supposed that any occasion for the Bishop of Ely to
enter on such an investigation himself would have depended on the in-
sufficiency of my discussion of these differences, and that Bishop Colenso
had no right to blame the Bishop of Ely for contenting himself with a
reference to me, without showing that I had failed in my attempt to
account for them. Instead of this, however, he absolves himself from
any consideration of my discussion of the matter with this contemptu-
ous remark: "From the specimen which we have had in (6 ii.)
above of Mr. Quarry's mode of reasoning, so much approved by Bp.
Browne, I am not surprised at this," namely, at the Bishop's reference
to my work. Turning now to the specimen by which he justifies this
contempt (6 ii.) pp. 57.58, we find the Bishop of Ely quoted as saying, in
regard to the repetition of the name Elohim in i. 1-ii. 3, "The passage
is scarcely more really marked as Elohistic by the name Elohim occur-
ring thirty-five times, than if it had occurred but once; for its having
occurred once would inevitably lead to its continued and frequent
recurrence," in support of which my table of alternations of the names
in p. 401 of this work is cited in a note by his Lordship. To this
quotation Bishop Colenso subjoins, "Ans. Would inevitably lead, etc'!
Then let the reader turn to"-certain passages to which I purpose shortly
to revert. And he adds, "In short, the table of Mr. Quarry, to which
(
xiv
NOTICE.
Bp. Browne appeals in a note with so much confidence as-showing
how different the virtual occurrence of the respective names is from the
apparent superficial occurrence on which so much has been built-is a
simple absurdity when we take account of the above passages.' To
this he appends a note, in which he says, "By reckoning thirty-five
Elohims in Gen. i. 1-ii. 3, three in v. 22-26, five in vi. 9-22, four in
ix. 1-6, two in v. 1, viii. 1, ix. 1-6, each set as one, and similarly with
Jehovah, Mr. Quarry considers himself to have proved that "as evidence
of any predilection for either name, the case is just as if in Geǹ. i.—xi.
Elohim had occurred singly fifteen times, and Jehovah twelve times."
Just remarking on this note that I plainly did not consider myself to have
proved this by reckoning as thus stated, but by the reasons assigned for
reckoning in this manner, and that Bishop Colenso thus misrepresents
my reasoning, of which he speaks so contemptuously, I now turn again
to p. 72, in which I find him further saying that the Bishop of Ely,
"after Mr. Quarry, has been 'constructing a theory in spite of facts,'
since, according to his view-see above (6 ii.)—the writer having once
begun with using Jehovah, should inevitably' have gone on repeating
it throughout the section." On this passage I remark as follows:
"}
1. The sentence is constructed with singular ambiguity. A person
reading in a cursory way would probably refer the pronoun his
in the clause "according to his view, to me as the person last
mentioned. Still, however, it may be alleged that it was intended to
be referred to the Bishop of Ely as the principal subject of the sentence.
Whether this ambiguity was accidental or not, it seems plain that the
author intended to represent me as equally responsible with the Bishop
of Ely for the alleged view, and for the use of the word inevitably, or
of something equivalent, as giving to the argument the absurdity he so
confidently imputes to it, shewing the stress he lays on this word by
previously quoting it twice in Italics.
..
2. The Bishop of Ely is misrepresented in the sentence, so far as the
reference is to him. He merely spoke of the use of a particular name
at the outset as inevitably leading to its repetition, which only expresses
strongly the natural tendency, what it would inevitably suggest. The
author, however, represents the Bishop of Ely as thinking, "after
me," that a person having once begun with a particular name, should
inevitably" have gone on repeating it. It will at once be seen how
different are the Bishop of Ely's words and this interpretation of them,
separated as it is by a considerable number of pages from the words
themselves. It is plainly one thing to say that a particular act in-
evitably leads to its repetition, and another that the repetition should
inevitably take place. Perhaps the Bishop of Ely will think that he
may apply to Bishop Colenso the words of the latter respecting himself,
NOTICE.
XV
((
p. 24, and
assume that this is the result of mere carelessness on his
part, and not of a deliberate purpose to misrepresent his argument."
3. And now as regards myself, I never used the words at all, either
expressly or by implication. The Bishop of Ely merely expressed his
own opinion, and supported it by a reference to the conclusions I had
arrived at. And as I never used the phrase on which so much stress
is laid, still less would I have said anything implying that this continued
use of a name once adopted was in any way necessary. How should I,
when I had laid it down first as a principle, p. 264, that "supposing
that the two names, Jehovah and Elohim, were co-existing names of
the same nature and equivalent in their meaning, it would be nothing
remarkable for the same writer, if only for the sake of variety, to use
both indiscriminately and indifferently"? But I further say in the
same connection, "At the same time it would not be unlikely that a
writer, having from whatever cause set out with one or other of these
names, should in any short piece complete in itself, such as a psalm or
brief narrative of some particular events or circumstances, occasionally
adhere to the use of the same name throughout." This was on the
supposition that the names were equivalent; but having shown at
length that the names were not equivalent, the one being a proper
name and the other generic, I then, p. 267, mention the occasions which
may naturally arise for variation in their use in the same discourse.
As regards the tendency to continue the use of the name first adopted,
I remarked on Gen. i. 1-ii. 3, in reference to the argument founded on
the number of times Elohim is repeated in this passage, that "as regards
any weight attached to the frequency of Elohim in the present passage,
the argument is perfectly futile. If the writer had both names in
common use, and was otherwise indifferent as to his choice, the general
unity of this passage in substance and in form, and the regularity with
which at each succeeding mention of God, he is introduced as it were
with a standing formula, "and God said," "and God saw," "and God
created,” “and God blessed," would have naturally occasioned the use
of the same name throughout, God being mentioned in no other con-
nection after the introductory verses. And then the subject matter
being uniformly such as made the general name more suitable, the
whole must be regarded, not as representing 35 independent instances
of the use of Elohim, as the Bishop treats it, but as if it were used only
once, all the repetitions of it being of no more weight in this enquiry
than the pronoun which might all through be substituted for it after
the first use of the word." This remark is referred to in the general
survey of the first eleven chapters in pp. 400 ff., and then I add that
"the same remark may be made in reference to many other passages, in
which one or other name having been, for whatever reason, once
xvi
NOTICE.
adopted, its repetition through the remainder of the passage is a matter
of course, and does not add in any respect to the character of the
passage, as Elohistic or Jehovistic. The use of the compound name
Jehovah Elohim is indifferent, and indicates no preference for either.
Setting aside the places where this occurs, and reducing to one the
number of times in which the same name is repeated as a matter of
course, in sequence with its first adoption, the justness of which in each
case the reader can judge for himself, the alternation of the names will
be as follows," viz. as set out in the table referred to by the Bishop of
Ely, together with the sentence that succeeds it. To that sentence I sub-
join what follows: "Had these names been thus thinly scattered, and
their places in other instances been supplied as they might, and in
other languages would for the most part have been, by pronouns or
other devices, it is probable the Jehovist and Elohist, as separate
writers, would never have been dreamt of. It is only the Oriental, or
at any rate the Hebraistic, habit of repetition which we Westerns try to
avoid, that has given a supposititious importance to the recurrence and
alternations of these names." This is what I have said on the subject
in its general aspect, while in going through the successive portions of
the book in detail, I endeavoured to account for the repetitions or changes
as they occur on simple, natural, and reasonable grounds. And in
doing this, I have not overlooked the passages in Genesis to which the
Bishop of Natal refers in proof of the simple absurdity attributed to
my table of alternations.
It will now be apparent why I took for granted that the Bishop of
Natal had not read this work. While I have no right to suppose he
was bound to make himself acquainted with it, it certainly behoved
him, both as a matter of literary caution, and in common fairness, either
to have taken no notice whatever of it and of me, or to have first ascer-
tained what I really did say on this subject.
The passages not contained in Genesis to which Bishop Colenso
refers as proof of the alleged absurdity of my table are in Ex. iii. and
Numb. xxii. A few words will show that these passages are quite
consistent with anything I have said.
In Ex. iii. Horeb is called "the Mount of God" in v. 1, this being
in the writer's mind its well-known designation, derived either from
the common usage to express a superlative, or from the divine mani-
festations there made. But this use of Elohim occasions no repetition
of that word, as the account of the appearance in the burning bush
commences immediately after in v. 2. Now the regular and all but
invariable espression used to denote the personal manifestations
of God in a sensible form is "the Angel of Jehovah." This, there-
fore, comes in properly in v. 2, and in sequence with it Jehovah
1
NOTICE.
xvii
again occurs in v. 4, in accordance with the alleged tendency
that has given rise to this discussion. But as the Lord might
have seen Moses turn aside without being himself sensibly present
in the bush, the writer indicates that the actual manifestation in
the bush was divine, God himself, not a created angel, by saying
that "Elohim spake to him out of the bush," the generic Elohim
being, as I have abundantly shown, the proper word to mark the dis-
tinction between the divine and the created. Then again in v. 6,
Elohim, the generic word, is properly used in the predicate, "the
Elohim of Abraham," etc. To have said
To have said "I am the Jehovah of
Abraham" would have been absurd. But as it was Jehovah that was
the subject of this proposition, represented by the pronoun I, so it is
still Jehovah that speaks in v. 7. Here, however, comes a break by the
intervention of several verses. The name Jehovah is now about to be
formally communicated to Moses, first by the form "I am," Ehejeh, in
the first person, and then in the third person, Jahveh or Jehovah. To
make the narrative more dramatically correct, it is therefore to Elchim
Moses is said to have spoken in v. 11, and this word continues to be
used until God announces himself as "I am," Jehovah Elohim of your
fathers, Elohim of Abraham, etc., vv. 14-16, in sequence with which
we have again in v. 18, Jehovah Elohim of the Hebrews, Jehovah our
Elohim. Thus all the instances of alternation and repetition are in the
highest degree in accordance with the principles laid down by me on
this subject.
In Numb. xxii. there is a great dramatic propriety also observable.
It was not as an ordinary magician, but as one who professed the worship
of Jehovah, the God of the Israelites, and affected to prophesy by his aid,
that Balaam was resorted to by Balak. Accordingly, while in the early
part of the narrative, Elohim is used by the writer speaking in his
own person, Jehovah alone is put into Balaam's mouth, except in v. 18,
where he calls Jehovah his God. This continues until v. 23, where
God appears to Balaam as the Angel of Jehovah, this customary desig-
nation being here used as in Ex. iii., and continuing through this part
of the narrative with the interchange of Jehovah by itself twice, in
sequence with it, or to mark the identity of the Angel of Jehovah
with Jehovah himself. A new portion of the narrative commences
with v 36, and in v. 38 Balaam speaks of the word that Elohim should
put into his mouth, distinguishing it thus as divine from his own word
as human. In xxiii. 3, he hopes Jehovah will come to meet him,
while the narrator in v. 4 uses Elohim as before, telling us that God
did meet him, though, with manifest reference to Balaam's expectation,
he says in v. 5 that Jehovah put a word in his mouth. Jehovah being thus
adopted by the writer continues to be used by him in his own person,
xviii
NOTICE.
except in xxiv. 2, where he says the Spirit of God, a divine not a
human influence, came upon Balaam. So also, as before, Balaam in con-
versation with Balak uses Jehovah as the name of his God, while Balak
uses Elohim, as not being himself a worshipper of Jehovah, but speaks
of Jehovah as being Balaam's God, a real god, according to the true
spirit of the heathen. But in all the poetical predictions of Balaam,
called parables in our English version, with the variation common in
the parallel clauses of Hebrew poetry, he uses several different designa-
tions of the Divine Being. And it is remarkable that throughout these
poetic oracles he never uses the plural form Elohim, except in xxiii.
19, where he calls Jehovah Israel's Elohim, a phrase familiar to the
writer's mind, but always the singular El, as if to mark his belief in
the unity of God, in opposition to Balak's polytheism. In xxiii. 8,
God is El and Jehovah, in 19-24 El, Elohim, and Jehovah; in xxiv.
3-9, El, Shaddai, and Jehovah; in 16-23, he is El, Elion, and Shaddai.
Thus these several designations are gathered up into identity with the
personal Jehovah, in close conformity with a similar identification which
I have noticed in pp. 297-299 as carefully made by the writer of the
Book of Genesis. In all this there
In all this there is great dramatic propriety, great
evidence of design on the writer's part, quite enough to overbear any
natural tendency to use one name throughout, and to account for the
various interchanges.
As in the remaining parts of his examination, the Bishop of Natal
has entirely ignored my work, I am not called on to notice further
any of his remarks. But I take one "specimen," to use his own word.
In p. 65 he revives his advocacy of the genuineness of the celebrated
Clarian Oracle, relying on the authority of Land for the purity of its
Greek and the correctness of its versification. Of course he takes no
notice of what I have said on the subject in pp. 303-4; and passing over
sub silentio his former translation of the oracle which I have criticised, he
now offers a new translation, in which he corrects his mis-rendering of
ἀλαπαδνὸς, so far as to substitute slight for adroit, and takes παύρη
as a nominative instead of the dative πaúpy, without, however, much
mending the sense, as I have shown. Perhaps it was with some feeling
of this fact that now, as before, he introduces the indefinite article.
But if by
(( a little sense and a slight understanding," he intends our
elliptical way of recommending a little of sense and a slight degree of
understanding, however this may somewhat help the meaning, it is not
what the Greek construction signifies, nor is slight, as denoting
quantity, a proper rendering of åλaжadvòs. He also proposes to sub-
ἀλαπαδνὸς.
stitute vηïevðéa for vŋπevðéa, a variant that might easily have arisen
in copying the modern cursive Greek, but was not so likely to occur in
NOTICE.
xix
the more ancient uncial character. But to say nothing of the question-
able lawfulness of conjectural emendation for controversial purposes,'
if this change has the advantage of introducing a real in place of a
doubtful Greek word, matters are not mended as regards the sense; for
this emendation takes away the little grain of meaning the verse other-
wise possessed. For while there was some reason in saying that one
ought not to divulge mysteries that were ineffable in the sense of such
as should not be mentioned, or rather were not to be enquired into, as the
word would more properly signify, to call them "soul-soothing" is to
give a reason for divulging, not for concealing them. It is astonishing
how uncritical upon occasion, and even credulous, the sceptical mind
can be! Indeed, the entire tone of this examination, as regards the
Bishop of Ely, is by no means consistent with the calm, judicial spirit
of a true critic.
Eusebius reads αὑτογένεθλον.
1 In reference to another conjectural reading, approved of by the Bishop in place
of the silly aẞpòv Iáw of the last line, I suggested, p. 304, note, that if emendation
of this kind were admissible we might read Ἐβραῖον Ιάω, instead of δ`άβρον Ιάω. Ι
might have justified this by another pretended oracle of Apollo cited by Justin,
Cohort. p. 12 B., Par 1615, and by Porphyry, apud Euseb. Præp. Ev. ix. 10., Par.
1628. As given by Justin it is as follows:
Μοῦνοι Χαλδαῖοι σοφίην λάχον, ἥδ᾽ ἄρ᾽ Ἑβραῖοι,
᾿Αυτογένητον ἄνακτα σεβαζόμενοι Θεὸν ἁγνῶς.
:
!
1
!
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
I. ON THE IMPORT OF THE INTRODUCTORY CHAPTERS
OF THE BOOK OF GENESIS.
CHAPTERS I., II. 1-3.
THE SIX DAYS' CREATION.
I. THERE is no respect in which those who are adverse to the
notion of the divine authority of the Holy Scriptures, and of an
external revelation as contained therein, have supposed that
they were in possession of a more advantageous ground from
which to direct their attacks, than in the recent discoveries of
geological enquirers, and the facts that these have brought to
light in regard to the ancient history of our globe and of its
living occupants. And nothing has occasioned the advocates of
divine revelation a greater amount of perplexity, or placed them
in a more unfavourable point of view, than the efforts which
they have thought it necessary to make with the view of recon-
ciling the accounts of the creation contained in the book of
Genesis with the facts revealed by these discoveries. In the
infancy of geological science indeed it presented no obstacle to
the reception of the Mosaic account of creation regarded as a
literal history, setting forth the successive steps in which it was
accomplished in six days of ordinary duration; while the dis-
covery of fossil shells high up on the mountain ranges was sup-
posed to afford a striking confirmation of the book of Genesis
1
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
2
in respect to another particular of no slight importance, namely,
the history of the deluge. Geology and its speculations, carried
on in the interest of revelation, were at that time discountenanced
by the infidel, and absurd hypotheses were framed to account for
appearances which were supposed to be confirmatory of the
Scriptural narrative of that event, such as Voltaire's supposition
that the fossil shells of the Alpine passes were left behind by
pilgrims, who, on their return from the Holy Land, had brought
them as memorials of their pilgrimage.¹ The inadequacy of such
an explanation was evident enough, and believers in the Scrip-
ture history triumphed in this appeal to "the testimony of the
rocks." Many that have long known the true state of the case
are old onough to remember being taught that the deluge had
left incontestible evidences of itself in the shells to be found on
the tops of mountains-a notion which it is to be feared the
general progress of education and diffusion of knowledge have
scarcely yet banished from the minds of some.
How completely matters have been changed in this respect
in these later times it is unnecessary to say. The advocates
of revelation have latterly, through their own mistaken tactics,
found themselves in the miserable condition of an army
obliged to retreat before an advancing enemy, continually
taking up new positions to be presently abandoned again, and
ever in momentary expectation of being driven from the en-
trenchments that seemed to promise the greatest security. The
theories that have been framed from time to time to meet the
advancing state of scientific discovery, from their variety and
inconsistency with one another no less than by their separate
insufficiency, have failed to give satisfaction; even the most
confident of their propounders must have felt that at best
their explanations were only provisional. Such as have been
any time before the world are too well known to those who
take an interest in these matters to make it needful to describe
them in detail, and their inconsistencies with one another as
Dict. Philos., Art. Coquilles.
THE SIX DAYS' CREATION.
3
CO
well as with the plain statements of the Biblical document itself
have been amply exposed in Mr. Goodwin's article in the "Essays
and Reviews," in a spirit, however, devoid of any desire to sus-
tain the character of that document as an inspired communication.
These theories have proceeded in general either on the sup-
position that the successive stages of creation revealed by the
researches of geologists had wholly come to an end, and that
the earth was again reduced to a state of chaos, before the
supposed new creation of the six days of Moses, representing
the present state of nature, commenced ;—a supposition which
is negatived by the fact that such a general submersion of the
earth as it implies, subsequent to any of the recognised geo-
logical periods, or indeed any decided and absolute break of
continuity in the transition from the most recent of the older
states to the present order, is not only without evidence, but
contrary to all evidence afforded by geological observation.
Or else they have supposed the successive days of the Mosaic
account to represent the successive geological periods, this
hypothesis in its most ingenious form, as presented by the late
Hugh Miller, assuming that the creatures specified were not
the only ones created on the successive days, but such as were
specially characteristic of the successive periods. While Hugh
Miller adopted the notion of an optical display of creation in
its progress, as represented in a vision to Moses, more recently
Professor Challis, in his Essay, "Creation in Plan and in Pro-
gress," supposes that the first chapter of Genesis presents not
a history of the actual progressive operations of the Creator,
but a proleptical or anticipatory representation of the scheme
of creation, as devised by the Almighty. This he brings into
accordance, as he thinks, with facts, by assuming, like Miller,
that the point fixed in each successive period is not that of first
appearances; but, instead of Miller's characteristic productions,
he supposes that of maximum operation.' This he says embraces
1 Professor Challis is not consistent in his notion of what constitutes maximum
operation or development. In p. 67, the enormous development of flora in the
4
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
the preceding steps of development and the subsequent de-
scending steps, while "the intervals over which their unfold-
ings were spread, overlapped each other," pp. 70, 71. In order
to make the account, even on this supposition, accord with facts,
he is obliged to confine the creatures of the sea, said to have
been created on the fifth day, to reptiles, relying on the in-
sufficient rendering of the Septuagint (éρπeтà), and the word
denoting flying creatures to the winged monsters such as
pterodactyls. Thus, though he supposes all kinds of winged
animals to be included,¹ yet he regards the word as properly
and, according to the principle of maximum development, pri-
marily to signify a sort of creature quite unknown to those
in whose language the word was properly applicable to birds.
Fishes he excludes altogether, like birds, from any express
recognition, though he supposes them to be included with the
cetaceans as the maximum development of the marine tribe,
these being brought out of their own period, the tertiary into
the secondary, merely on account of their marine habitat;
animals not really belonging to this period at all being thus
specified as characterising it in regard to an important part of
its living creatures. But even apart from these difficulties, our
knowledge of the characteristic productions, or the creatures
carboniferous period, greatly exceeding the amount of like productions, before or
after," has manifest reference to quantity in the aggregate, rather than in the size
of individual productions, while in respect to the secondary and tertiary periods, he
speaks of the "
development of animal life, remarkable as to form and magnitude,"
such as gigantic species of quadrupeds. In p. 74, he observes there is "no geological
evidence of an epoch of the maximum production of fishes. While the species
changed very gradually, the individuals were always in nearly the same abundance."
Here development in regard to number is plainly intended. But presently he adds
that "the epoch of the cetaceans is regarded as that of the maximum development of
the marine tribe of animals," as evidenced by the mention of "the great whales,"
where size not number is the criterion.
¹ It is only very recently that birds have been supposed to have existed at all prior
to the tertiary period, the first clear instance of the remains of a bird in deposits of
an earlier period having been portions of the skeleton of a swimming bird, found in
the upper greensand of the cretaceous series, near Cambridge, in 1858, [the geological
age of the footprints previously found in America having been doubted by competent
authorities]. Since then the Archeopteryx Macrurus, now in the British Museum,
was found near Solenhofen, in Bavaria, in a member of the upper oolite. See Lyell's
Antiquity of Man, p. 451. These rare instances do not certainly justify any reference
to them in a description intended to represent the creatures of maximum development,
as regards numbers, while in respect to size they are by no means remarkable.
THE SIX DAYS' CREATION.
5
10
(C
of maximum development, belonging to particular geological
formations supposed to have been contemporaneous, is founded
on a very imperfect induction; we have not the evidence to
be derived from vast regions as yet unexplored by geologists,
which may hereafter greatly modify our view of what is cha-
racteristic of any particular period, while the larger part of the
globe submerged beneath the ocean must for ever remain un-
explored.¹ But, moreover, all theories, on whatever principle
they proceed, agree in one particular, the recent creation of
man; except indeed, that on the scheme of Professor Challis,
he might perhaps have existed during the tertiary period. No
other scheme at any rate makes any provision for the possible
future discovery of human remains in any of the geological
periods, as distinguished from the present order of things on
the earth's surface. Accordingly the advocates of the purely
historical character of the Mosaic account, have within a very
recent period been much disturbed by the seemingly unques-
tionable discovery of the works of man in the heart of an ancient
gravel drift, at Abbeville in Picardy, and like discoveries else-
where. The artificial character of these remains, consisting of
flint arrowheads, knives, and hatchets, and the antiquity of the
deposits in which they were found, were at first disputed.
Careful investigation, however, removed all doubt on these
points. And now Sir Charles Lyell, in his work on the
Antiquity of Man," has brought together a large amount of
evidence, which has since received considerable accessions, highly
convincing to any one at all acquainted with the nature of
geological discussions;-evidence derived from England, the
1 Thus Sir Charles Lyell, Antiquity of Man, p. 448, eloquently remarks, "that it
is not part of the plan of nature to write everywhere, and at all times, her auto-
biographical memoirs. On the contrary, ber annals are local and exceptional from
the first, and portions of them are afterwards ground into mud, sand, and pebbles, to
furnish materials for new strata. Even of those ancient monuments, now forming
the crust of the earth, which have not been destroyed by rivers and the waves of the
sea, or which have escaped being melted by volcanic heat, three-fourths lie submerged
beneath the ocean, and are inaccessible to man; while of those which form the dry
land, a great part are hidden for ever from our observation by mountain masses,
thousands of feet thick, piled over them."
6
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
Continent of Europe, and America, by which it is clear that
man was co-existent with the mammoth and mastodon, the
cave-bear, and cave-hyena, and other extinct quadrupeds. The
bones of these, in some instances split for the extraction of
the marrow, have been found with human bones and artificial
implements, in circumstances quite inconsistent with the sup-
position of a cataclysmal sweeping together at some more
recent period-circumstances which leave no doubt that the
earth was peopled by the human race at a vastly more early
period than was previously at all imagined. These unexpected
indications of the antiquity of the human race, and the fact
that the result of fresh geological discovery has ever been to
push back the existence of different creatures to an earlier
period than that in which they had been previously supposed
to have lived, as instanced in the recent discovery of the
feathered tribe within the secondary period, create a strong
anticipation that human remains may also be ere long dis-
covered in some of these earlier periods of the earth's existence.
Under these circumstances it would be rash in the highest
degree to build one's faith on a negative evidence that may
at any moment be converted into positive evidence of an oppo-
site tendency; and we see how desirable it would be for the
advocates of the divine authority of the Biblical records to
find some principle of interpretation, which would set them
free from all apprehension of discoveries that might seem at
variance with such records, and would be far more in accord-
ance with the uses of a divine revelation than any representa-
tion of the progress and order of the physical development of
creation.
II. The marvel, indeed, is that those who are thus perplexed
by the discoveries of modern geology should not remember, that
even supposing these discoveries had never been made, or were
of quite an opposite character to what they really are, or that
we were still in respect to geological science in that state of
happy innocence which prevailed when Voltaire resorted to the
THE SIX DAYS' CREATION.
7
notable expedient to account for the existence of fossil shells on
the heights of mountains which was adverted to just now, quite
as serious an astronomical difficulty would still remain—a diffi-
culty felt to be so great when the Copernican system was first
established as to occasion the persecution and forced retractation
of Galileo, and to induce the Jesuit editors of Newton's Principia
to save their reputation by disclaiming a belief in the reality of
that system which formed the basis of the great work on which
they were commenting. Long habit has enabled men now to
blink this difficulty; or if instead of shutting their eyes to it,
many have wisely given up the strictly historical character of
the narrative in this particular, it is strange that they should
feel bound still to maintain that character with respect to the
works assigned to the other days beside the fourth. The more
rational view would seem to be that, if the narrative cannot be
taken in respect to this fourth day's work in its literal historical
acceptation, it is necessary, in order to preserve the unity of
character which the whole passage evidently possesses, to
abandon that acceptation as regards the remainder.
Some indeed, as Professor Challis, and more recently Dr.
M'Caul, "Mosaic Record of Creation," in "Aids to Faith," con-
front the astronomical difficulty. The former supposes a dense
stratum of cloud to have hidden the heavenly bodies until the
fourth day, previously to which the earth was self-luminous,
but then ceased to be so, the light of the heavenly bodies be-
coming manifest by the disruption of the supposed cloud stratum.
And he says that, "according to the principle of this narrative,
their existence would not be recognised till they became visible
or produced sensible effects," pp. 39, 40. Now this supposes
previous alternations of light and darkness, evening and morn-
ing, day and night, not produced by the heavenly bodies and
their motions, real or apparent, and yet manifestly identified by
the narrative itself with the alternations called by the same
name, and similarly enumerated in succession as produced by
the heavenly bodies; while the self-luminosity of the earth suffi-
8
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
cient for the purposes of vegetation, the very existence of which
yet supposes a degree of heat in the earth insufficient to cause a
development of light, the production of the alternations of day
and night in some unknown way, the existence of the cloud
stratum, dense enough to exclude the sun's light and its subse-
quent dispersion, are purely arbitrary conjectures. If conjec-
tures such as these, unwarranted by any trace of evidence in the
narrative, or any facts of which we are aware, were admissible,
any one with a fertile imagination might easily get rid of all
difficulties in this and like cases. Dr. M'Caul, "Aids to Faith,
pp. 209-12, offers Laplace's celebrated nebular hypothesis of the
formation of the solar system, as affording a probable solution of
the difficulty,-a theory which its author proposed, as he said,
with the défiance which became him in reference to views which
had been tested neither by experiment¹ nor by calculation, which
""
1 In a note, p. 210, Dr. M'Caul refers, for an experimental verification of the
theory, to the beautiful experiments of M. Plateau on à revolving mass of fluid freed
from the action of gravitation, which he obtained by introducing oil into a mixture of
alcohol and water in such proportions as to be of the same specific gravity as the oil.
When the oil, which assumed the form of a globe, was made to revolve, it became
flattened, and an equatorial ring was separated, which, as it revolved, was divided into
equidistant spheres which continued to revolve round the original axis, and also
rotated on their own axis, while between them there were smaller globules like
satellites which revolved in the same orbit, the entire effect lasting for a few moments.
Dr. M'Caul could not have read M. Plateau's own Memoir, as plainly appears from the
way in which he describes the experiments as made, namely, by causing the vessel to
revolve on its axis. When he caused the vessel itself to revolve, its contents of course.
soon partook of its own motion and revolved with it as if part of a solid mass, and it
was only by suddenly stopping the motion of the vessel, the friction of whose sides
then retarded the ambient fluid, that he could obtain an excess of motion in the globe
of oil, and thus observe the effect of centrifugal force. He accordingly abandoned
this mode of experiment as unsatisfactory. See his note, Taylor's Scientific Memoirs,
vol. iv. p. 34. We gather from this that Dr. M'Caul did not see the papers of M.
Plateau himself. Had he read them, he would scarcely have appealed to the experi-
ments as affording a verification of the theory in question, as M. Plateau is careful
to distinguish the force of molecular attraction, which, with the friction of the ambient
fluid, was the force opposed to the centrifugal force in his experiments, from that of
gravitation, which would have operated by a different law in the formation of the planets.
An illustration of the theory they do afford. And accordingly, in p. 36, M. Plateau
says: "The experiment which we have just described presents, as we see, an image in
miniature of the formation of the planets according to the hypothesis of Laplace, by
the rupture of the cosmical rings attributable to the condensation of the solar atmos-
phere; and again, in p. 43, "Notwithstanding the difference of the laws which the
attractive forces follow in this case, and in that of large planetary masses, we have
seen produced on a small scale a striking representation of the majority of the phe-
nomena of configuration relative to the celestial bodies." But that he considered
this far from a verification is plain; for in p. 37, in reference to the illustration of
Saturn surrounded by his ring, he says, "this experiment must be regarded merely as
THE SIX DAYS' CREATION.
9
has not progressed a step towards the semblance of demonstra-
tion since it was first advanced, and which has been deprived of
the seeming countenance it had received from the existence of
other nebulous masses supposed to be like systems in progress
of formation, by their resolution into distinct stars in the field of
Lord Rosse's telescope.¹ Assuming the probable truth of this
theory, he supposes that the central mass did not receive its
luminous atmosphere while the several planets were in progress
a scientific sport, for the circumstances which gave rise to the result have evidently no
analogy with those which can have occasioned the configuration of the system of
Saturn." And again, in a subsequent memoir, having described the revolution of a
column of oil into larger spheres with intermediate satellites, as in the case of the
revolving ring, he subjoins the following note: "It is clear that this mode of forma-
tion is entirely foreign to Laplace's cosmogonic hypothesis; therefore we have no
idea of deducing from this little experiment, which only refers to the effects of mole-
cular attraction and not to that of gravitation, any argument in favour of the hypo-
thesis in question, an hypothesis which in other respects we do not adopt."-Taylor's
Scientific Memoirs, vol. v. p. 661.
It will be observed that the smaller spheres were not, properly speaking, satellites
at all, but lesser principals, though there is no reason why satellites should not be
produced if the experiments could be continued under favourable circumstances. It
will also be perceived that there is no illustration of the formation of a single planet,
but only of a series in the same orbit, which appear to have never shown the least
tendency to run into one. It is farther observable that while the experiments exhibit
a rotation of the revolving spheres on their own axis, nothing is said of the velocity of
that rotation. Theory would seem to provide for only one revolution on the axis
during the period of revolution round the centre of the system, as in the case of the
moon. In the ring, as first separated, any imaginary sphere would make one revolu-
tion round an axis perpendicular to the plain of the ring while this rotated once round
the central body. The principle of rotation on which Foucault's celebrated experi-
ment is founded would imply this much; and when the ring is resolved into separate
spheres, it is reasonable to suppose that these would retain the same velocity of revolu-
tion on their axis, as there appears nothing to occasion its increase or diminution.
The motion of the primary planets, however, on their axes is far more rapid in pro-
portion to their periodic times, and for this more rapid motion the nebular theory does
not account.
Dr. M'Caul says of this theory that "its truth has been taken for granted by
Humboldt, 'Cosmos,' i. 85, 90; iv. 163." This, however, is far from being the fact.
In the place first referred to, Humboldt merely says, "If the planets have been
formed out of separate rings of nebulous matter revolving round the sun," such and
such causes "may" have produced certain existing differences. In the third he merely
speaks of the internal heat of the earth as "generated possibly by the condensation of
a rotating nebulous ring." In the second reference he actually suggests a difficulty in
the way of supposing the planets to have been thus formed. "If the primary and
secondary planets have been formed by condensation from annular rotating portions of
the primitive atmospheres of the sun and of the principal planets, there must have
been in the ring of vapour which revolved round Uranus singular and unknown
relations of retardation or counteraction to have occasioned the second and fourth
satellite to revolve in a direction opposite to that of the rotation of the central
planet."
¹ This observation can scarcely be considered as invalidated by the still more recent
application of the Spectrum-Analysis to some of the Nebula. The indications of the
gaseous nature of the Nebula thus obtained can hardly be yet considered decisive.
10
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
of formation, as from time to time they were separated in the
form of rings which subsequently broke and were contracted
into spheres. "The work of the fourth day consisted in fur-
nishing it with its luminous atmosphere. When this took place,
and the sun began to shed its light, then the moon and the
earth's fellow planets, 'the stars' of v. 16, became luminous
also." He says Moses does not call the sun "Or, light," but
maór, a place or instrument of light, a luminary or candle-
stick," or, as he afterwards expresses it, "a lightholder." One
would suppose that the use of these terms would imply quite
the opposite of what Dr. M'Caul adduces them to prove. If one
speaks of setting lights in an apartment, nothing is of necessity
implied as to the introduction of candlesticks or lamps, which
may have been there already, and only needed to be furnished
with candles or to have lights kindled in them; but if one
speaks of placing candlesticks or lamps, then the introduction
of the "lightholders" themselves is expressed, and it is not even
implied that lights are kindled in them. Nothing can be
plainer, moreover, than that an ordinary reader would naturally
understand by "the stars" of v. 16 the stars in general, both
fixed and planetary; while the application of the nebular theory
to the explanation of this verse obliges us to confine them to
the planets alone, which, as known to the ancients, and distin-
guished from the earth and moon, were only five out of that
countless host of stars which Abraham was challenged to tell
if he could number. And as the narrative of Genesis i. affords
no intimation that the planets only were intended, it is assumed
that the fixed stars, as distinguished from them, were included
in the heavens mentioned in v. 1, that verse being supposed to
describe a previous creation to that formed in the six days.
And in order to prove the pre-existence of the fixed stars to the
earth and so to the other bodies of the solar system, the mention
of the morning stars which sang together at the creation of the
earth according to Job xxxviii. 7, is relied on.
But this proves
nothing of the kind; the singing of the morning stars may have
(C
THE SIX DAYS' CREATION.
11
taken place at the simultaneous creation of the earth and other
heavenly bodies, when the music of the spheres commenced its
glorious harmony. Dr. M'Caul is also mistaken in supposing
that the sons of God, mentioned in the parallel clause as shout-
ing for joy, were the angels whose supposed existence before the
creation of the earth would confirm the previous creation of the
morning stars also. Plainly the latter clause, according to the
frequent usage of Hebrew poetry, only repeats in a different
form the idea expressed in the former; and a personal act being
attributed to the stars in the first, (they sang together), the per-
sonification is carried on and varied in the second by calling them
the sons of God, which here only means their being creatures of
God. But even if his interpretation of this verse were correct,
its citation in the present discussion would be irrelevant. The
question being the agreement of the words of Moses with the
facts of nature, it is not allowable to import into the words of
Moses a meaning derived from any other author-a meaning
which his own words do not imply.
More recently, Dr. Pusey, in his great work on the book of
Daniel, Pref., p. xviii., speaks of "the remarkable parenthetic
mention of the stars in Genesis, when, in the detailed account
of the creation of the sun and moon, and of their offices for our
earth, there are appended the simple words, and the stars,' as
though it was intended only to guard against the error, that
they might otherwise be thought to be uncreated." Now, if
they had appeared in the original as in the English version,
"he made the stars also," they might possibly be parenthetic.
But as they stand they can scarcely be so regarded, especially
as "the stars" is connected by the particle denoting the object
() with the sun and moon, as together governed by the same
verb. Moreover, the words expressing the offices for our earth,
to "be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years,
must apply to the stars as well as to the sun and moon, inas-
much as the sun and moon do not, for the practical uses of
mankind, mark seasons and years except in connexion with the
25
12
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
stars. With great deference for so eminent an authority, one
must therefore reject the supposition that this clause is paren-
thetic and refers to a previous creation of the stars. It cer-
tainly was not so regarded by the writer of Psalm cxxxvi. 7–9:
"Who made great lights: for his mercy endureth for ever;
The sun to rule the day: for his mercy endureth for ever;
The moon and the stars to govern the night: for his mercy endureth for ever."
It is true, however, as Dr. M'Caul says, that "Moses does not
say that the body of the sun or moon or stars were created on
the fourth day." He says it, however, just as much as he says.
that their light was created on that day, or that the other works
were created on the several days enumerated with them. What-
ever was the relation intended between the several works and
days respectively, if we may legitimately separate the perfor-
mance of any one of the works from the day specified in con-
nexion with it, we may just as lawfully do so in regard to the
others. And whatever conclusion the exigencies of the narra-
tive necessitate in regard to the relation between the works and
days in any one case, the unity of character and identity of form
in the entire passage will oblige us to adopt the same in reference
to all the rest.
III. There is a principle frequently insisted on, scarcely
denied by any, yet recognised with sufficient clearness by few
of the advocates of revelation, which if fully and practically
recognised, would have saved themselves much perplexity and
vexation, and the cause they have at heart the disgrace with
which it has been covered by the futile attempts that have been
made through provisional and shifting interpretations to recon-
cile the Mosaic Genesis with the rapidly advancing strides of
physical science. The principle referred to is this: matters
which are discoverable by human reason and the means of
investigation which God has put within the reach of man's
faculties are not the proper subjects of divine revelation, and
matters which do not concern morals or bear on man's spiritual
relations towards God are not within the province of revealed
THE SIX DAYS' CREATION.
13
religion. If, then, a person writing by the inspiration of God
on things pertaining to religion should have occasion to speak
of the phenomena of nature, it might be expected beforehand
that he would speak of them as they are phenomena, that is,
according to the impressions which they make as appearances,
and so according to his own existing conceptions or the imperfect
apprehensions of those for whose use he might have been more
immediately writing. On any of the more moderate theories of
inspiration, according to which the writer is in the conscious
exercise of his own faculties, speaking from his own knowledge
and observation in matters within the range of his experience
and according to his own familiar conceptions in regard to
matters which it did not form part of the design of revelation
to make known more exactly, this may seem the less question-
able. In regard to such matters, God's part would seem to be
confined to such a superintendence and guiding of the writer as
might best conduce to serve the end in view, while the more
direct communication from God would be confined to matters
beyond the writer's information, but which it was God's purpose
to reveal. And even the revelation thus imparted, being as it
were filtered through the writer's mind, would be more or less
coloured by his own individuality. This colouring derived from
the writer's individuality is found to be actually observable in
the case even of the doctrinal parts of the New Testament, as
we may instance in the case of the same truths as put forward
by St. James or St. John, and by St. Paul. And this, so far
from impairing the value of the sacred writings as the vehicle
of Divine revelation, may be, if not necessary, at any rate
largely conducive to their serving the purpose for which they
were intended. It is thus that the purely chemical elements of
the material world would be utterly unfit for man's use as
articles of food; but when taken up and assimilated by the
organic productions of Nature they become profitable and
nutritious. But even on a higher and more rigid theory of
inspiration, what has been called the organic, as distinguished
14
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
from the other, known as the dynamic, supposing that the
writer is a mere passive instrument, like a pen in the hand of
God, the presumption would seem to be, that God, in communi-
cating spiritual truth, would do it in such a way as not to
supersede man's understanding and the exercise of his faculties
in matters unconcerned with what it was God's purpose to
reveal. We see even in the case of our blessed Lord that the
union of divine and human in his person did not supersede his
growth in wisdom as in stature-in human wisdom, no doubt,
as in human stature. And that man might live by every word
that proceedeth out of the mouth of God, it would be as needful
on this, as on the former supposition, that the pure elements of
absolute truth, too subtle or too hard for man's spiritual diges-
tion, should be incorporated in some sort of earthly organism,
to be available for our instruction. It is therefore presumable,
even taking the highest view of inspiration, that much would
be conformed to the previous conceptions of the sacred writer,
or of those for whom his writing was more immediately intended.
It may be said this is true in regard to all casual allusions to
natural phenomena, but the case is different in respect to a
formal statement purporting to set forth the creation of the
world, and bearing on its whole surface such a physical character
as is presented by the first chapter of Genesis. But it will
readily appear that in this representation the religious element
is the essential part; what is purely physical only the accessory
clothing. And if in this physical representation we find
particulars manifestly in accordance with things as they appear,
and with the natural and popular conceptions of men in regard
to them, such as the entire subordination of the heavenly bodies
to this earth and the uses of man, and consequently the
representation of their creation after the earth, the probability
is, that in other particulars not within the range of observation,
and so not even sensible appearances, the representation is not
more exactly conformed to the reality of things. We need not,
however, suppose that in such particulars the writer puts for-
THE SIX DAYS' CREATION.
15
ward his own inventions as physical truth. Some poetic
imagery is adopted, some principle of representation discover-
able by the reader, if only he will give up looking for physical
truth where moral alone is to be expected. Such representa-
tions are still, however, true in a certain point of view, as
they are practically more useful for the writer's purpose, being
designedly employed as better adapted to enforce the truth
which he is more immediately concerned with inculcating;
while a representation conformed to the reality of nature might,
as incomprehensible to the reader, be wholly useless for this
end, and so beside his purpose altogether. Moreover, such a
representation, conformed to physical reality, beyond the writer's
own or his reader's previous conceptions, would render what
would be thus taught matter of faith, and so far supersede the
exercise of those faculties by which God has intended that we
should glorify him in the study of Nature, and thus, for no
apparent advantage, defeat a manifest design and arrangement
of Providence.
Indeed, as scientific investigation is and ever must be a
constantly progressing pursuit, each successive discovery, as
it advances the frontiers of knowledge, opening a new and as
yet unknown region to our speculations, in which fresh dis-
coveries are again to be made, any description of physical
phenomena imparted by revelation would necessarily, from the
very nature of the case, be always imperfect, if conformed to
any particular stage of this progressing scientific advancement.
Beyond that stage, as discoveries would become extended, meu
would find the same difficulty and perplexity which is now felt
on the supposition that the Mosaic account of creation should be
conformed to the present state of scientific knowledge; while up
to that particular stage of discovery there would be an equally
perplexing inconsistency between the revealed account and men's
own observations of nature. Or if the representation should be
conformed to the ultimate and absolute reality of things, it
would be always to some extent, if not altogether, at variance
16
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
with men's knowledge arrived at by the investigations of rea-
son, which can never be adequate to things as they really are.
A representation such as this would occasion a perpetual dis-
agreement in many particulars, between what would thus, as
revealed, be matter of faith, and even the most advanced scientific
knowledge, to say nothing of men's sensible apprehensions or
the popular conceptions that would prevail from time to time. It
would, therefore, be less useful for any purpose that we can
conceive than a description founded on sensible appearances
or adapted to the conception of those for whose use it might
be intended, or else a representation framed, for some special
purpose, according to an artificial scheme, devised by the
writer. Only in this latter case we might expect that he
would give some indication, perceptible to persons of ordinary
intelligence, that he does not intend his statements to be taken
in their literal acceptation, as an exact historical account of
the matters described. When things are represented according
to their sensible appearances, or to popular conceptions, no such
indication is called for. The writer speaks in good faith, and
his statements are subjectively true as regards his readers, and
it may be himself also. It is only when he departs from, or
goes beyond, his own or his readers' conceptions, that it is
necessary to indicate that he does not mean his words to be
understood as exactly conformed to facts, but merely as a
manner of speaking, a form embodying a truth not literally
expressed. Sometimes the nature of the composition itself as
a work of imagination, or at any rate adorned with poetic
imagery, will suffice to hinder any misconception. This is
partly the case with the Mosaic account of the creation, and
partly the statements themselves give sufficient indications that
they are not meant to be taken in their exact literal and his-
torical acceptation.
IV. The existence of these indications in the Genesis of
Moses has been perceived by those interpreters in all ages who
have not allowed themselves to be blinded by prejudice. Of such
THE SIX DAYS' CREATION.
17
interpreters we can trace back a stream that is finally lost in
the source from whence the Christian Church received the
Hebrew Scriptures; and it will be found that the Jewish doc-
tors at the time of the Christian era were not unobservant of
these indications also. It will be interesting to trace back this
stream of opinion with a few rapid strides, and will help per-
haps to a right conception of the design and import of the
Mosaic account of the creation. But before this is done it will
be well to direct attention to the peculiarities of the document
itself, that have given rise to the opinion to which reference has
just been made, to examine the statements of the Mosaic Genesis,
and to observe whether the writer gives any sufficient indica-
tions to justify the supposition that he did not intend his
account to be regarded as an exact historical description of
the process of creation in the order and limited times of its
successive steps. It is not in any spirit of irreverence that
such a review of the inconsistencies in this account, when re-
garded as a strictly historical statement, is entered upon here.
It is with sincere reverence for the document itself, as an in-
tegral part of the sacred volume, and with the view of freeing it
from the difficulties which these inconsistencies present, as well as
from those occasioned by physical science, that the writer ven-
tures to adduce them, in proof that we must assign to it some
other character than that of a strictly historical narrative, and
endeavour to remove it altogether from the range of physical
interpretation and the relation to scientific discoveries.
And, first, it is to be noticed that at the outset the heavens
and the earth-the universe at large, as it would appear-are
represented as created simultaneously-a representation with
which the fourth verse of the second chapter, mentioning the
day on which God created the heavens and the earth, agrees.
The heavens thus created cannot denote the mere empty space
in which the heavenly bodies move, that space not being a
material existence but an uncreated vacuity. Either the
'One is utterly at a loss to conceive how Professor Challis, pp. 16, 17, can think
1
نا
18
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
heavenly bodies themselves, which in their aggregate constitute
the heavens, or else the material firmament in which they
appear to be set, must be intended. In either case this state-
ment is incompatible with the subsequent statement taken
historically. For the firmament in which, according to v. 14,
the heavenly bodies were set is represented as not called into
existence until the second day, while the heavenly bodies them-
selves are described, with the same formula which expresses the
other days' work, as called into existence only on the fourth
day. It will not suffice to say that the first verse contains only
an anticipation of the creation of the heavenly bodies; for the
earth is coupled with them, and in that statement rightly sub-
ordinated to them, while there is no further mention of the
actual creation of the earth, which appears thenceforth as
already existing, and so implies the simultaneous existence of
the heavenly bodies, whose creation is described conjointly with
that of the earth. Thus, at the very outset, we are met by a
statement which seems incompatible with the historical character
of the subsequent narrative; and if we must abandon that in so
important a particular as the celestial world, a parity of inter-
pretation and the unity of character in the entire passage will
require the same as regards the other particulars similarly
described. And thus we can see how justly the son of Sirach
says, "He that liveth for ever created all things together,
and why some of the Rabbinical writers and St. Augustine, as
we shall see hereafter, regarded all creation as having taken
place simultaneously or concurrently, the subsequent orderly
991
((
of space as a created existence. Regarding the second verse as a negation of the
existence as yet of the earth as an objective reality, for which he relies on the words
of the Septuagint, ἡ δὲ γῆ ἦν ἀόρατος καὶ ἀκατασκεύαστος, and then supposing the
deep" or abyss to denote space, he infers that this was now created as a positive
existence. If he spoke of space as an affection of matter, one of the qualities of
which is extension, then we might understand his treating it as in a manner created
with matter. But he speaks of it as antecedent to matter, and independent of it,
while he says matter, since it has dimensions, is not independent of space. Surely,
supposing space to be a positive existence antecedent to and independent of matter,
it must at any rate be an uncreated existence. As a mental conception, it is an
affection of created intelligences. The reference to Rom. viii. 39, in support of his
idea, is quite unwarrantable.
1 YEKTIσe tà návтa Kоivý.- Ecclus. xviii. 1.
THE SIX DAYS' CREATION.
19
succession of the several works and days, as described by Moses,
being an ordo rationis solùm, only a rational separation, arrange-
ment, or classification of things already existing.
Then, again, we have the creation of light, while as yet the
heavenly bodies, according to the order of the subsequent
narrative, have not been called into existence and set in the
firmament. Both in fact and in popular conception, light, as a
cosmical element, whatever be its nature, molecular or undu-
latory, is mainly, and for all the purposes of natural illumination,
derived from the heavenly bodies. And it is the light that
illuminates this world, as distinguished from ordinary darkness,
-daylight as distinguished from night, receiving from the Creator
its name of day, while darkness is called night, and alternating
with night through the vicissitudes of evening and morning for
three successively enumerated days-that is thus represented as
existing before the time when the sun, on which alone depends
this alternation, is said to have been called into existence. And
surely the days thus specified, whatever is intended by their
enumeration, are, as set forth in the narrative, ordinary natural
days. No prophetic day, no day of the Lord said to be as a thou-
sand years, no day standing for any other definite time, is ever
thus described as having evening and morning. This is the
essential difference-the distinguishing mark of the kind of day
mentioned. Moreover, the days enumerated are similarly
described all through the chapter; and as one of these days in
particular-the day mentioned in immediate connexion with
the appointment of the sun and moon to divide the day from
the night, the one to rule the day and the other the night-can
1
¹ Dr. M'Caul, in p. 214, says, "The time of light in which the Divine work pro-
ceeded He called day, and the time of darkness He called night;" and then in a foot-
note he says, "Compare the words of our Lord: 'I must work the works of Him
that sent me, while it is day; the night cometh when no man can work.'" This is
not a case in point. Day, in our Lord's words, does not stand for an indefinite
period, but for natural day, and night for natural night. Our Lord compares him-
self to a workman who has an allotted day's work to accomplish, and must haste to
complete it while the daylight lasts, lest the approaching darkness of night should
oblige him to cease before his work is done. The same remark applies to similar
passages, such as Rom. xiii. 12., which, however, Dr. M'Caul might as well have
adduced.
20
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
on no fair principle of interpretation denote any other kind of
day than that produced by the sun, so also must all the days
reckoned be the same. The existence of such days in an orderly
succession, as proper days, divided by the sun before the actual
creation of the sun, would be a contradiction, while the descrip-
tion plainly indicates periods and alternations having all the
characteristics of such days. That all the appearances produced
by the sun should have taken place in orderly succession, and
due gradation, while yet there was no sun, and having been
thus independently produced for so long, should then without
break or interruption have gone on, as the effects of the sun, is
so improbable a representation, that one seems forced to find an
escape from the difficulty in the non-historic character of the
narrative in this particular, and so of the entire account as
setting forth the successive steps of the actual creation in due
order of time; while this non-historic character is confirmed by
the mention of God's assigning the names of day and night, as
subsequently of heaven, and earth, and sea. The attributing the
assignment of these names to the Creator, and that in the
language of men, while as yet there were in existence no men
in whose language such names might be spoken, and to whom
they might be communicated, of itself suggests not a literal fact
but a manner of speaking indicative of the specific differences
of things as distinguished by the Creator. Moreover, the
manner in which the several days are enumerated is peculiar.
Josephus ¹ intimates that there was a particular reason why in
verse 5 we read “ one day" and not the first—a reason which he
promised to explain on another occasion, but did not. Now, it
is true that the cardinal one with the article (which it has not
here) was used in Hebrew as an ordinal. But this was regular,
one of the ways of forming a superlative, which the word first
properly is, having been to prefix the article. The Hebrews
also spoke of the first of the month as "one to the month," the
word day being always omitted, a manner of speaking occa-
1 Ant. I., 1, 1.
1
THE SIX DAYS' CREATION.
21
sioned by frequent use, and the consequent aiming at brevity.
They said likewise "the year of one" for the first year, (as "of
two," or " of three," etc.),-an elliptic form which in full would
be "the year of one year." But besides these idiomatic ex-
pressions, we have no instance whatever of the employment of
the cardinal one as an ordinal.¹ And, as we find it here, in
reference to the first of the creation days, while the ordinals are
used to specify all the succeeding days,—a peculiarity sufficient
to attract the attention of Josephus, to whom the Hebrew usage
was familiar,—it is at least possible that the writer intended to
intimate that he did not mean the first of a series of consecutive
days in their proper order of temporal succession, but the first of
a promiscuous number, in reference to which the other days were
numerically, as expressed without the article, and not in the
order of time, a second, third, etc., just as in the Latin enume-
ration by unus, alter, tertius. Moreover, an intelligent reader,
who had noticed the peculiarity now mentioned, could scarcely
have failed to observe further, that in enumerating the days in
the unusual manner which the writer adopts-"there was
evening and there was morning, one day," "a second day,"
and so forth, without a definite article prefixed, until the sixth-
2
1 Mr. Rorison, "Replies to Essays and Reviews," p. 289, note, compares the well-
known ἐν μίᾳ τῶν σαββάτων. But this manner of speaking is referable, not to
Hebraistic usage, but to a proper Greek idiom. See Liddell and Scott, s. v., eîs.
2 Mr. Rorison, in the note just referred to, quotes the following note of Kalisch:
"It is futile to assign to this use any mysterious or hidden reason, as Josephus and
others insinuate, or to understand it as a peculiar day, a day sui generis, or a period
of indefinite duration." This is true, and it will be observed that Josephus has only
been cited as a competent authority in regard to the peculiarity of the expression, not
as if it denoted any mystery in the kind of days intended, but simply suggested
that the days are not reckoned in the order of temporal succession, the numerals being
taken for no more than they actually are, merely denoting promiscuous numbers until
the sixth, where the ordinal form, with the article prefixed, indicates the numerical
completion of the work-days enumerated. It will be seen, however, as we proceed,
that there is an order of succession, though not of temporal succession. It is to be
observed that it is not the character of this piece to reject the article generally, as in
some of the Psalms and other poetical compositions. The article is used invariably
except where the expression is designedly indefinite, or the word is one which habi-
tually refuses it. We may instance the former in v. 2: "A spirit (or breath) of
Elohim," whether denoting a wind or a divine influence; and in v. 27 : “In an
image of Elohim created he him," as if to express only a certain similitude and not
an absolute likeness. Instances of the latter occur in e. 1, 2; the words there ren-
dered "the beginning" and "the deep" constantly reject the article.
22
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
he abstains from expressly asserting that the works enumerated
were actually for the first time wrought on the several days
reckoned in connexion with them. The relation between the
works and days is not distinctly expressed. To the nature of
that relation we purpose to revert hereafter; it is now merely
noticed for the sake of remarking that the indistinctness of its
expression has place amongst the indications of the non-historical
character of the passage.
Mr. Rorison, in his very beautiful contribution to the
"Replies to Essays and Reviews," which he has named "The
Creation Week," relies on the poetical parallelism which charac-
terises the whole passage, and which he has so admirably
brought out, as an evidence of its non-historic character. Com-
paring the arrangement of the passage with that of the Lord's
Prayer, he says, "None will dispute the presence of parallelism
in the Lord's Prayer-such parallelism as is proper to prayer,
a psalm, or parable, or prophecy, or impassioned discourse, but
is not proper to historical narrative. Yet how closely homolo-
gous in structure is the Mosaic Heptameron." It is not, how-
ever, the simple parallelism that is observable in the passage
which indicates its non-historic character. A poetical narrative
of historical facts might be set out in parallel sentences. But
it is the highly artificial arrangement, strikingly exhibited in
the correlation of the two groups or triads into which the six
days' works are resolvable, the luminaries of the fourth day
corresponding to the light of the first, the fishes and birds of
the fifth to the waters and the firmament of the second, and the
terrestrial animals of the sixth to the dry land of the third,
which affords the proper evidence that the narrative is not
strictly historical. This correlation of the three latter days'
operations to those of the three first respectively, is noticed by
Mr. MacDonald, who says, "Creation and Fall," p. 266, "The
works of the three last days of creation form a remarkable
parallel with those of the first three." Long before, it had not
escaped the observation of Thomas Aquinas, who remarks that
THE SIX DAYS' CREATION.
23
1
"the several parts of the world required to be distinguished
first, and then each part to be adorned by being replenished, as
it were, with its proper inhabitants." It has, however, been
most effectively displayed by Mr. Rorison, who has perceived,
what the others failed to notice, the non-historical character of
such an arrangement.
V. And now, if we compare the passage concluding with the
third verse of the second chapter with the account that follows,
we are forcibly struck by a difference which led Josephus to
remark, that in the latter Moses begins to speak physiologically,
or according to the truth of nature, implying that in the former
he spoke in the way he calls enigmatical. Indeed, it is hardly
conceivable that a writer, proposing to himself to describe a
series of events, in a plain historical manner, could have passed
consecutively from the one passage to the other. This differ-
ence has, therefore, been relied on as one of the main proofs of
the supposed fragmentary character of the early part of the
book of Genesis. For the present purpose it is, however, prac-
tically the same thing, whether Moses composed the two first
chapters consecutively, or only put together two documents, one
of which, at least, had previously existed, whether composed by
himself or by another, or such a combination had been made at
a later period. The Jewish Church, at any rate, handed over
the whole as one to the Christian, and the founders of the
Christian Church adopted it as such, one part to be doubtless
understood in a manner consistent with the other. The whole
has come to us as part of the sacred writings given by the
alleged inspiration of God. The allegation might be as true in
regard to a combination of fragments, as to a single work. At
any rate, those who put these passages together, if we suppose the
fragmentary hypothesis to be true, were as capable as we are of
perceiving the apparent inconsistency between them, and may
be reasonably supposed to have acted on the principle that one
part, at least, was not a strictly historical narrative to be taken
1 Oportuit primò distingui partes mundi: et postmodum singulas partes ornari per hoc
quòd quasi suis habitatoribus replentur.-Sum. Theol. Pars. Prim. Quæst. 74, Conclus.
24
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
in the literal acceptation of its statements-a view which we
shall see was taken by some of those who were highly esteemed
in the Church immediately after the Apostles' days. That the
differences are real, could not have escaped the notice of any but
those who, assuming that all must be received as literal history
given by the inspiration of God, have habitually shut their eyes
against the observation of any disagreements that would be in-
consistent with such an assumption. Let us, however, compare
the two passages, and note the points of difference.
In the first chapter we are told that "the earth brought forth
grass and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yield-
ing fruit whose seed was in itself after his kind: and God saw
that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the
third day." But then in the fifth verse of the second chapter
we are told "that every plant of the field was not yet in the
earth, and every herb of the field had not yet grown," that is,
no plant of the field was yet in the ground, and no herb of
the field had yet grown, "for the Lord God had not caused
it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the
ground." This seems to intimate that vegetation had not taken
place before the creation of man; and therefore, to provide a
place for his reception, God plants a garden, an apparent ex-
ception to the barrenness that prevailed as yet. So sensible
were translators, Greek, and Latin, and English, of this dis-
agreement, that they have rendered the passage in a way in-
consistent with the proper meaning and grammatical construc-
tion of the sentence, the word D, terem without a prefix
signifying not yet, and when placed between the verb and the
nominative case, admitting of no other rendering than that given
above.¹ This erroneous rendering of the translators, manifestly
resorted to from the exigence of the case, in order to avoid an
apparent contradiction between the statements of the two pas-
sages, makes the sacred writer represent the vegetable creation
S
1 [This is plainly the way of construing the words which naturally offers itself, and
that from which an absolute necessity alone would warrant a departure.] See Note
A, p. 247.
THE SIX DAYS' CREATION.
25
9
as a thing made and existing by itself before it was yet in the
ground, whereas in the first chapter it was made at its first pro-
duction to spring out of the ground. Professor Challis, p. 55,
adopts this erroneous translation, apparently not aware of any
grammatical objection to it, and regarding the fourth and fifth
verses as a summary of the whole preceding account, thinks
that the intention was to signify that the foregoing was "an
account of the creation as it was in plan or design, not as
executed." But besides the incorrectness of the rendering on
which he builds, he is mistaken in regarding these verses as a
summary of the preceding account, and in thinking that "the
historic account of natural facts and creative operations com-
mences with the sixth verse. The abruptness of this verse
standing by itself, and its connection with the preceding, both
verbally by a copulative, and in sense by the contrast be-
tween the mist and the rain, plainly show that it cannot be
the commencement of a new paragraph. The words, "these
are the generations," are an accredited commencing formula,
and there is not a shadow of reason for his saying that the like
formula at the commencement of the fifth chapter is retrospec-
tive; nothing can be plainer than its reference to the genealogy
that follows. He admits the prospective use of the formula at
the commencement of the tenth chapter, but relies on the retro-
spective reference of the words, "these are the families," at the
close of that chapter. But in this, and in similar instances in the
course of that chapter, they could not refer to the sequel which
has its own proper beginning, and must therefore refer to what
precedes. This is not the case in the second chapter; the first
paragraph has its proper peroration in the three first verses of
this chapter, and a second recapitulation in verse 4 would be an
unmeaning redundancy. The fourth verse is plainly the head-
ing of a new passage, with which it is connected grammatically
as well as by the use, for the first time, of the name Jehovah
Elohim, which is thenceforward continued through the chapter.
""
1
¹ [The LXX. use the same formula in ii. 4 as in v. 1, äurn ǹ Bißλos yevéoews.
This could never have had reference to the preceding account.]
26
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
1
Dr. M'Caul, it is true, p. 197, quotes the authority of Ewald,
for connecting the fourth verse with the preceding paragraph,
or at least the words, "these are the generations of the heavens
and the earth.” The impossibility of stopping at these words,
however, will appear presently, while against the authority of
Ewald may be set that of Hengstenberg, who, "Authentie des
Pentateuch," pp. 311 ff., makes the second passage to commence
with verse 4, as its superscription, in which it was intended to
represent the creation as the work of Jehovah, while in the first
it appears as the work of Elohim. Mr. MacDonald, "Creation
and the Fall,” pp. 323-4, recognises the incorrectness of the
usual rendering of the fifth verse and the necessity of carrying
the commencement of the new paragraph further back than this
verse. But to get over the difficulty of the apparent incon-
sistency between the two accounts, he makes a division in the
fourth verse, in opposition, he admits, to the Masoretic punctua-
tion, and, he might have added, to the Septuagint reading also.
He connects the first part with the previous account, which he
makes to conclude with the words, "These are the generations
of the heavens and the earth, when they were created ;" and he
commences the new paragraph with the words,
"In the day
that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens," supposing
that the writer goes back to a point previous to the creation of
the vegetable productions. He overlooks, however, the manifest
parallelism of the two clauses with the Hebraistic inversion in
the second of the order of the leading ideas expressed in the
first-heavens, earth, created" in one, and "made, earth,
heavens," in the other-which forbids the separation of the
two clauses; while in order to make the connection of the latter
with the fifth verse possible, he silently drops the copulative
1 Dr. M'Caul insists on the significance of the inversion of "the heavens and the
earth" when repeated as "the earth and the heavens," in v. 4. He supposes that
the heavens first mentioned are the heavens of Gen. i. 1, created before the earth,
while he regards the heavens as mentioned the second time as the firmament of
Gen. i. 7, 8, created subsequently to the carth, and therefore mentioned after the
carth. One greatly wonders Dr. M'Caul did not perceive that this is only an
Hebraistic poetical inversion of the order of the corresponding terms in the two
parallel clauses, an inversion not confined to "the heavens and earth," but extending
also to the corresponding words, "created" and "made.”
THE SIX DAYS' CREATION.
27
"1
with which this verse commences, and translates, "In the day
that the Lord God made earth and heaven, there was no shrub
of the field yet in the earth." It is strange that while he felt
it necessary to admit that he was departing from the Masoretic
punctuation, he should make no reference whatever to the un-
warrantable suppression of the conjunction which exists both in
the Hebrew, and in the Greek of the Septuagint. It is true we
meet with frequent instances in Hebrew in which the second
part of a sentence is connected with the first by a conjunction,
in cases in which we should not think of using one; and the
next chapter, v. 5, affords an instance which at first sight might
be thought to justify the use of the copulative in the sentence
formed by the proposed division of v. 4, and the junction of its
latter clause to v. 5. In the English version this copulative is
represented by then: "In the day ye eat thereof, then your
eyes shall be opened." This, in the original, runs thus:
"In
the day of your eating thereof, also shall be opened your eyes.'
Here the copulative connects their eating in the former part
with their eyes being opened in the latter, somewhat in the
manner of the antecedent and consequent of an hypothetic
proposition, the parts of which are frequently thus connected in
Hebrew; and, in fact, the instance which has been quoted is
only a disguised hypothetic; "if ye eat, your eyes shall be
opened also."
When this is not the case, some important
word, as the nominative case to a verb, or, as in this
instance, the pronoun your, is carried from the first part of
the sentence on to the second. There is nothing of this kind in
the case under consideration; no idea expressed or understood
is carried from the first clause into the second; the word earth,
repeated in the latter, has a somewhat different meaning from
the earth coupled with the heavens in the former, denoting
rather the ground or soil out of which vegetables should grow,
than the earth in its cosmical sense, and severed also from the
בְּיוֹם אֲכָלְכֶם מִמֶּנּוּ וְנִפְקְחוּ עֵינֵיכֶם !
28
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
heavens, which should be joined with it, if it were in this way
carried on from the first clause by the conjunction. It is also
alleged by Keil, Commentary on the Pentateuch, that it is
"grammatically impossible" that this clause can be the protasis
of a sentence of which the apodosis is to be found in v. 5, “because
in
v. 5 the noun stands first, and not the verb, as we should
expect in such a case." Nothing can more clearly show the
difficulties that beset the purely historical interpretation than
these shifts to which its advocates are constrained to resort in
order to evade their force. The significance of the formula,
"These are the generations," in reference to the organic struc-
ture of the entire book, as the title of its larger sections, will be
fully discussed hereafter.
It is to be noticed further that in the first chapter winged
fowl are created simultaneously with the creatures of the sea,
and by implication are produced from the air as the fishes from
the waters, while in the second chapter God forms every fowl
of the air, no less than every beast of the field, out of the ground.
Moreover, in the latter, both appear to have been formed subse-
quently to the creation of man, being brought to him at their
creation to be named by him; whereas, in the former, both
appear to be previously created, and the fowls on a different
day. And, lastly, in the second chapter the formation of the
woman is a subsequent operation to the creation of the man, while
in the first man is made both male and female at once—a dif-
ference which gave rise to the foolish speculation of the Rabbis,
that the man and woman were created together, united back to
back or side to side, and separated during the deep sleep de-
scribed in the second chapter, but which may more reasonably
be regarded as indicating that in the first chapter the creation
of the species, male and female, and not of an individual man
and woman, was intended.
Now, it is true that attempts have been made by the supposi-
tion of prolepsis in one place and metalepsis in another, anticipated
mention here and repetition there, to reconcile the statements of
THE SIX DAYS' CREATION.
29
these two passages. It does not concern the present argument
to inquire what measure of success may have attended these
attempts. It is enough for our purpose that a difference exists
so manifest as to require such attempts at the reconciliation of
statements which could scarcely thus widely differ, if written as
consecutive parts of a history meant to be understood through-
out in the literal acceptation of its words. If the construction
of one or both passages is such as to suggest that either is to be
taken in a sense different from the literal acceptation, this is
sufficient to justify our departing from that acceptation, as
designed by the author; and particularly in respect to that one
which we find it difficult to reconcile with facts on the supposi-
tion that it is a literal history, as is the case with the first
chapter.
VI. It was remarked that the necessity of thus departing
from the historical interpretation had been felt by many from
the very commencement of the Christian era, and even by some
of those from whom the Christian Church received the Hebrew
Scriptures. It will be of use here rapidly to trace back this
succession of interpreters before any endeavour to elicit from
the document itself what is its real purport and design. And
in doing this it should be premised that it is by no means
intended to express any assent to the several opinions which
are about to be adduced, but merely to cite them as evidence of
the difficulties which men of learning and intelligence, as well
as of profound reverence for the sacred writings, have from time
to time experienced in the interpretation of this portion of
Holy Scripture.
Let us take our start from a point anterior to the difficulties
presented by modern geological discoveries, and commence with
a luminary of the Gallican Church, Augustine Calmet. In a
dissertation on the system of the world, according to the
Hebrews, prefixed to his Commentary on the book of Ecclesi-
asticus, he concludes by remarking:-"Let no one say that if
the words of the sacred writers are found inconsistent with truth
and experience in matters of physical science, we have no reason.
30
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
to bestow greater credit on them in other matters. For the
statements referred to are not so positively set down, as if they
meant to assert them for truths. They put them forward, as it
were ex hypothesi--not as their own, but as the received opinion."1
[More distinctly amongst ourselves Dr. Samuel Clark, in his
Exposition of the Church Catechism," speaking of the Fourth
Commandment, says, "As to the particular space of time, in
which this beautiful fabric of the world was formed out of a
Chaos, and made of things which do not appear; 'tis not in
itself at all material, whether it had been performed in one
moment, or in six days. But for our greater distinctness of
perception, 'tis described to have been effected in six days;
and possibly, moreover, as this might be a typical representa-
tion of some greater periods." The allusion is probably to the
notion of the world lasting six thousand years, to be followed
by a millenial period; the notion of long geological periods.
had not yet been thought of.]
We turn now to Dr. Thomas Burnet, the well-known author
of the "Theory of the Earth," who, in his Archeologice Philo-
sophicæ, having pointed out the disagreement of several particu-
lars in the Mosaic Genesis with the truth of nature, proceeds to
say2:-"These brief annotations on the Genesis set forth by
Moses, seem to prove that it was not the design of the sacred
author to explain the formation of the world in accordance with
physical truth, which would have been useless for a people
incapable of instruction in philosophy; but to represent the
origin of things in such a manner as might be easy of concep-
tion, and might beget piety and the worship of the true God in
the minds of men." And he proceeds to observe, that as other
ancient nations prefixed a cosmogony full of idolatrous notions
to their national history, so Moses prefixed to the history and
institutes of his nation something of the same kind, in a form
calculated to eradicate such idolatrous notions. In illustration
of this he refers to a passage in the Hexaemeron of Basil the
1 Translated from the Latin edition of "Calmet's Commentary on the Bible.”
2 Arch. Phil., b. ii. c. 8, p. 424.
CC
THE SIX DAYS' CREATION.
31
Great, where it said that the creation of the sun did not take
place until after the earth was clothed with vegetables, in order
to counteract the tendency of men to worship the sun as the
supposed cause of vegetation. It is true Basil treats this as
designed, not merely in the order of narration, but of creation
itself. But that, under the historical form, a different meaning
was suspected by Basil himself to lie hid, may be gathered from
his words in the introduction to the first homily, where he says,
it is desirable at the outset to enquire who the author was, as
though, through the weakness of our understanding we may not
be able to arrive at the inward meaning of the historian, yet
having regard to the credibility of the speaker, we may be
readily led to assent to what he says.¹
We pass next to Stillingfleet, who briefly remarks, “All the
question is concerning the particular manner which was used
by God, as the efficient cause in giving being to the world. As
to which I shall only in general suggest what Maimonides says
of it. Ommia simul creata erant, et postea successive ab invicem
separata; altho' I am somewhat inclinable to that of Gassendus,
Majus est mundus opus, quam ut assequi mens humana illius
molitionem possit."2 Perhaps we shall see reason to suspect
that Maimonides, if not Stillingfleet after him, regarded the
subsequent successive separation, as pertaining only to the de-
scription and not the actual formation of the six days' work.
The next writer to whom reference may be made is the cele-
brated Dr. Henry More, who, in 1662, published his Conjectura
Cabbalistica, in which he proposed a threefold interpretation of
the three first chapters of Genesis, distinguished as the Literal,
the Philosophical, and the Mystical or Moral Cabbala. With
▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
1 Ἐνθυμηθῶμεν τίς δ διαλεγόμενος ἡμῖν· διότι κἂν τῆς βαθείας καρδίας τοῦ συγγραφέως
μὴ ἀφικώμεθα διὰ τὸ τῆς διανοίας ἡμῶν ἀσθενὲς, ἀλλὰ τῇγε ἀξιοπιστίᾳ προσέχοντες τοῦ
λέγοντος, αὐτομάτως εἰς συγκατάθεσιν τῶν εἰρημένων ἐναχθησόμεθα. [Burnet corre-
sponded with Sir Isaac Newton on this subject, and there is an interesting letter
from Newton in Brewster's Life of Newton, vol. ii. pp. 447 ff. I extract the
following: "When he tells us of two great lights, and the stars made the
fourth day, I do not think their creation from beginning to end was done the fourth
day, nor in any one day of the creation.-It being his design to describe things in
order according to the succession of days, allotting no more than one day to one
thing, they were to be referred to some day or other." There is, however, a good
deal of realism in the interpretations contained in this letter.]
2 Origines Sacræ, b. iii. c. 2, p. 296, ed. 1709.
32
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
the latter we are in no way concerned; of the Literal, he says
in the Preface that by it "there is a very charitable provision
made for them that are so prone to expect rigid precepts of
philosophy in Moses his outward text. For this Literal Cabbala
will steer them from that toil of endeavouring to make the bare
letter speak consonantly to the true frame of nature, which
while they attempt with more zeal than knowledge, they both
disgrace themselves and wrong Moses." The spirit of this so-
called Literal Cabbala is to be found in the Introduction to the
Defence of it, p. 50, where he says that "the manner of deliver-
ing the Creation is accommodately to the apprehension of the
meanest not speaking of things according to their very essence
and real nature, but according to their appearances to us: not
starting of high and intricate questions, and concluding them
by subtle arguments, but familiarly and condescendingly setting
out the Creation, according to the most easy and obvious con-
ceits they themselves had of those things they saw in the world.
Nor doth it follow that the narration must not be true, because
it is according to the appearance of things to sense and obvious
fancy; for there is also a truth of appearance, according to which
Scripture most-what speaks in philosophical matters."
In the Philosophical Cabbala there is a great deal of Pytha-
gorean speculation on the meaning of numbers, much that
makes one readily assent to what the author says in the Preface
in reference to the title of his work, "that though I call this
interpretation of mine Cabbala, yet I must confess I received
it neither from man nor angel. Nor came it to me by Divine
inspiration." A few sentences are extracted that are of moment
to the present inquiry. In p. 72, he says that the atheist shall
have nothing to allege against the philosophy of this account of
the Creation, "for he shall not hear Moses in this Philosophick
Cabbala either tasking God to his six days' labour, or bounding
the world at the clouds, or making the moon bigger than the
stars, or numbering days without suns." And in pp. 79, 80, he
says, "you are to understand that these six numbers or days do
THE SIX DAYS' CREATION.
33
""
not signify any order of time, but the nature of the things that
are made in them. But for anything in Moses his Philosophick
Cabbala, all might be made at once, or in such periods of time,
as is most suitable to the nature of the things themselves."
"Nor will this at all seem bold or harsh, if we consider that the
most learned have already agreed that all the whole creation
was made at once.—So that that leisurely order of days is thus
quite taken away, and all the scruples that may rise from that
hypothesis.
Bacon points to a like manner of regarding the description of
the six days' work. He says, "In the works of creation we
perceive a twofold emanation of divine virtue, of which one has
relation to power, the other to wisdom. The former is chiefly
discerned in the creation of matter in the mass, the latter in the
beautiful disposition of its form. This being premised, it is to
be noted that there is nothing in the history of the creation to
hinder our understanding the confused mass and material of
heaven and earth to have been created in one moment of time, to
the disposing and digesting of which six days have been attri-
buted, so significantly has God discriminated between the opera-
tions of his power and of his wisdom. To this is to be added
that in respect to the creation of matter it is not related that
God said, 'Let there be heavens and earth,' as was said of the
succeeding works; but the actual work is nakedly asserted:
'God created the heavens and the earth;' so that matter appears
as if wrought by hand; but the introduction of form has the
style of a law or decree." If we observe the use of the word
1 In operibus creationis, duplicem virtutis divinæ emanationem videmus, quarum
una ad potentiam refertur, altera ad sapientiam: Illa præcipuè cernitur in creandâ
mole materiæ, hæc in pulchritudine formæ disponendâ. Hoc posito notandum est,
nihil in creationis historia obstare, quin fuerit confusa illa cœli terræque massa et
materia unico temporis momento creata, cui tamen disponendæ, digerendæque sex
dies fuerunt attributi; adeò signanter Deus opera potentiæ ac sapientiæ discriminavit.
Cui accedit quòd de materiæ creatione memoriæ proditum non sit dixisse Deum, fiat
cœlum et terra, sicut de sequentibus operibus dictum est; sed nudè atque actualiter,
Deus creavit cœlum et terram: ita ut materia videatur, tanquam manufacta; formæ
verò introductio stylum habeat legis, aut decreti. De Augm. Sei. lib. i. [In the
earlier "Advancement of Learning the disposition of the mass of created matter is
called "the work of six days." But if we compare Thom. Aq. Sum. Theol. pt. 1.
qu. 74. Art. 2 sub fin., where the views of Augustine are discussed, we cannot doubt
that Bacon had this in view and that the change was designed. Both make the same
3
34
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
actualiter in regard to the creation of the heavens and the earth,
and reflect that the actual introduction of form required divine
power as much as the creation of the universe in mass, we
cannot doubt that he regarded the account of the six days' work
as descriptive of things as they exist, rather than as they were
actually created.
In the unreformed Church, the celebrated Cajetan,¹ who died
in 1534, thus wrote on Gen. i. 5; "For the sanctification of
each seventh day, Moses gathered the days to seven rather than
to any other number. Yet the works of the six days were not.
on this account a fiction. But to six perfections of the universe
in orderly mutual relation he accommodated six days, to signify
that the things of which the universe consists have an order
and sequence between themselves, just as six natural days have.
So that between days and works there is a similitude of propor-
tion in such manner that, as a second day has its relation of
sequence to the first, and a third to the second, and so on to the
seventh, so the six created perfections have a relation of
sequence to one another up to the consummation of all things
requisite to the perfection of the universe in every respect in
the existing nature of things. Because, therefore, the things
created by God when distributed into six gradations are related
to one another, just as if the several gradations had been pro-
duced on several days, and the artificer had rested on the
seventh, all being completed; so without a fiction Moses ac-
commodated all the works created at the first instant, in which
God created the heavens and the earth, as distributed into six
degrees of perfections in orderly relation to one another, to
six natural days, and rest to a seventh." 2
distinction between the creation of matter in the mass and the communication of
form, both use the word attribute in reference to the six days, and the word signanter
in reference to the discrimination in speaking of Creation.-Deus creavit omnia simul,
quantum ad rerum substantiam quodammodo informem : sed quantum ad formationem
et ornatum non simul. Unde signanter utiter verbo creationis.-Secundum Aug. ille
ordo dierum referendus est ad naturalem ordinem operum, quæ dicbus attribuuntur.]
1
[¹ Mr. Mivart, in the "Contemporary Review" for Jan., 1872, gives many references
to other eminent Roman Catholic theologians. A striking passage by Colet, the
Dean of St. Paul's, is quoted by Milman in his "Annals of St. Paul's Cathedral.]
2 Moses propter sanctificationem septimi cujusque diei collegit dies ad septem
potiùs quàm alium numerum. Nec propterea fiuxit opera sex dierum: sed accommo-
davit sex ordinatè se habentibus perfectionibus universi sex dies: ad siguificandum,
THE SIX DAYS' CREATION.
35
If now one steps back to the times of the Schoolmen, a
cursory glance at the questions discussed in the Summa
Theologie, of Thomas Aquinas, in reference to the six days
of creation, their nature and the works performed in them,
will show how many and perplexing difficulties this portion
of Holy Scripture was at that period thought to present.
Amongst these questions may be instanced the difficulty arising
from the enumeration of successive days with evening and
morning, light and darkness, before the creation of the heavenly
bodies as represented on the fourth day, and the production of
the vegetable clothing of the earth prior also to the existence
of the sun, so necessary to its growth according to all experience.
At an earlier period the Venerable Bede remarked in reference
to the mention of the first day in Gen. i. 5: "Perhaps under
the name of day all time is here designated, and all revolving
ages are included in this word. Hence it is not called the
first day, but one day." The notion that the creation days.
extend over all time to the final consummation, and are accord-
ingly still going on, was, as will presently be seen, entertained
by a much earlier authority.
Procopius of Gaza, who flourished circa an. 520, in his Com-
mentaria in Octateuchum, says, in reference to the creation of
the luminaries on the fourth day, that "we learn from it that
the number of days was assumed for the sake of order, and
because of our weakness of understanding. For else we should
quòd res universi sunt à Deo dispositæ ordinatè et consequenter se habentes inter
seipsas, quemadmodum sex dies naturales. Ita quòd inter dies et opera est similitudo
proportionalis: ut sicut secundus dies consequenter se habet ad primum, et tertius
ad secundum, et sic usque ad septimum; ita effecta sex perfectiones consequenter
se habent inter sese usque ad consummationem omnium requisitorum ad omnimodam
perfectionem universi in esse naturæ. Quia itaque effecta à Deo in sex distributa
gradus se habent inter se ac si facti fuissent singuli gradus singulis diebus, et septimo
quievisset opifex perfectis omnibus; ideò absque fictione Moses effecta omnia in
primo instanti, quo creavit coelos et terram, distributa in sex perfectionum gradus
consequenter se habentes, accommodavit sex diebus naturalibus, et quietem diei
septimo. Comment in Gen. i.
Fortassis hic diei nomen, totius temporis nomen est, et omnia volumina seculorum
hoc vocabulo includit. Ideòque non dictus dies primus sed dies unus. He says of
the second day, Ita hæc quæ repetuntur, sicut superiùs intelligenda sunt. And so
also he says of the other days.
36
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
not have been able to apprehend the order of created things by
reason of their multitude." And again on the commencement
of ch. ii. he says, "I think it manifest that after all things had
been already made and completed, for the sake of order and
proper harmonious arrangement, this number" (namely, six)
was assumed."
66
991
We now come to St. Augustine, who discourses at large on
this subject with great subtlety, and at the same time with great
depth of thought. He says, "It is more probable that the first
six days were evolved in a manner strange and unwonted
to us, in the conditions of things themselves, wherein even-
ing and morning, like real light and darkness, that is day
and night, did not present that alternation which natural
days do by the course of the sun; what at any rate we
are obliged to admit in regard to the three days enumerated
before the luminaries were created." He also says, that of
the same Creator of whom this.Scripture says that in six
days God finished all his works, it is elsewhere written that he
created all things simultaneously, these six or seven days being
rather one day six or seven times repeated in condescension to
the capacity of those who could not readily form a conception
of such a simultaneous creation of all things.3 And in a passage
¹ Docet numerum dierum assumptum esse ordinis gratiâ et ob nostram imbecillita-
tem intellectus. Nam alioqui non quivissemus ordinem rerum creatarum ob multi-
tudinem assequi. In Gen. i. 14. Manifestum arbitror cùm omnia jam essent facta
et consummata, ordinis gratiâ et debitæ consonantiæ assumptum esse hunc numerum.
In Gen. ii. 1, 2.
2 Probabilius est istos quidem septem dies, illorum nominibus et numero, alios
atque alios sibimet succedentes currendo temporalia peragere spatia: illos autem
primos sex dies inexpertâ nobis atque inusitatâ specie in ipsis rerum conditionibus
explicatos, in quibus et vespere et mane, sicut ipsa lux et tenebræ, id est dies et nox,
non eam vicissitudinem præbuerunt, quam præbent isti per solis circuitus; quod certè
de illis tribus fateri cogimur qui ante condita luminaria commemorati atque enumerati
sunt. Gen. ad Lit. iv. 18. Equally strong expressions of this view of the creation
days are to be found in the Liber Imperfectus de Gen. ad Literam. Reference may be
made to § 28, § 43, and § 51.
3 Gen. ad Lit. iv. 33. De quo Creatore Scriptura ista narravit quod sex diebus
consummaverit omnia opera sua, de illo alibi non utique dissonanter scriptum est
quod creavit omnia simul. Ac per hoc et istos dies sex vel septem, vel potiùs unum
sexies septiesve repetitum simul fecit qui fecit omnia simul. Quid ergo opus erat
sex dies tam distinctè dispositèque narrari? Quia scilicet ii qui non possunt videre
quod dictum est, Creavit omnia simul, nisi cum eis sermo tardiùs incedat, ad id quò
eos ducit pervenire non possunt.
THE SIX DAYS' CREATION.
37
to which there will be occasion to refer farther on, he says
that that one day which God first made was made present to all
his works, being prior or subsequent not by intervals of time,
but in the connexion of the creatures. The alternation of these
days, he says again, is not to be understood of a succession of
time, but of the variety that exists in the works of God, the
historian having subsequently in his discourse divided that
which God did not divide in the accomplishment of his work;
for God created all things simultaneously, whilst by one act
of his will he provided for the manifold variety of all species, in
which will all things were made without time, which from their
very origin God ceases not to dispense throughout all time.¹
Before Augustine, Origen likewise expressed his belief that
the account of the creation given by Moses contained under the
veil of the letter a profound and hidden meaning, intimating
that perhaps the only thing expressly taught was the creation
of the world in time.2 He asks how any one possessed of
sense could suppose that there was a succession of first, second,
and third days, with their evening and morning, before the
existence of sun and moon and stars, as represented by this
account in its literal acceptation.3
Irenæus gives a distinct intimation that he regarded the six
days of creation as still going on, the seventh day being the
promised rest of the righteous hereafter. He says that the
statement, that God finished his works in six days and rested
1 De mirabilibus Scripturæ i. Sed quamvis per sex dierum alternationem omnis
instituta fuisse creatura perhibetur, non tamen hæc dierum alternatio per spatium
temporis intelligitur; sed in his operum vicissitudo declaratur.
Post namque
historiæ narrator divisit in sermone, quod Deus non divisit in operis perfectione.
Simul enim cuncta quæ condidit, Deus creavit, dum unâ voluntate multiplicem
omnium specierum varietatem fieri disposuit, in quâ voluntate unà omnia simul sine
tempore esse fecit, quæ ab ipso ortu suo per tempus dispensare non desinit.
2 De conditione mundi quae alia nos Scriptura magis poterit edocere quàm ea quæ
à Moyse de origine ejus scripta est? Quæ licet majora intra se contineat quàm
historiæ narratio videtur ostendere, et spiritalem in quàm maximis contineat
intellectum, atque in rebus mysticis et profundis velamine quodam literæ utatur,
tamen nihilominùs indicat hoc sermo narrantis, quod ex certo tempore creata sunt
omnia quæ videntur. Пepl àpxŵv, iii. 5.
3 Τίς νοῦν ἔχων δρίζεται πρώτην, καὶ δευτέραν, καὶ τρίτην ἡμέραν, ἑσπέραν τε καὶ
πρωΐαν χωρὶς ἡλίου γεγονέναι, καὶ σελήνης, καὶ ἀστέρων; E Lib. iv., Περὶ ἀρχῶν,
citat. Justiniano.
38
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
the seventh, is partly a narrative of things already done, and
partly a prediction of what has not yet taken place.¹ Understand-
ing a day of the Lord as a thousand years, he considers this
present state as destined to last six thousand years, but at the
same time throws out a hint that he regarded the whole time as
after all only the one day that was made at the first. He shows
that the sentence, "In the day that thou eatest thou shalt
surely die," was verified in several ways: disobedience itself is
a state of death; from that day forth man became subject to
death; according to the circle and course of the week days it
was the same day, namely the sixth, for on this day our Saviour
died, and as he summed up in himself mankind from first to last,
so did he recapitulate man's death; some supposed that it was the
same day, regarded as a day of the Lord, for he died within a
thousand years; and it was on one and the same day, as the one
day of creation, according to the words, "There was evening
and there was morning one day." This one day of creation
thus distinguished from the same day of the week and from a
day of a thousand years, plainly implies the whole period of
creation to the final consummation, a day repeated in conception,
not in time, according to the varying nature of the works of
God.
These references of Irenæus bring us back nearly to the
period when the Christian Church received the Old Testament
Scriptures at the hands of the Jewish. The notions of the
Jewish doctors respecting the Mosaic account of creation may
be gathered from the More Nebochim, or Guide of the Simple,
of Maimonides, who has embodied their traditional teaching in
this work. In the Preface of it he tells us that in order to
1 Consummavit Deus in die sexto omnia opera sua quæ fecit, et requievit in die
septimo ab omnibus operibus suis quæ fecit. Hoc autem est et antefactorum narratio
quemadmodum facta sunt, et futurorum prophetia.-Et propter hoc in omni tempore
plasmatus in initio homo per manus Dei, id est Filii et Spiritus, fit secundùm imaginem
et similitudinem Dei. Adv. Hær. v. 28.
2 In ipsâ itaque die mortui sunt, in quâ et manducaverunt et debitores facti sunt
mortis, quoniam conditionis dies unus. Factum est enim (inquit) vespere et mane
dies unus.
In ipsâ autem hâc die manducaverunt, in ipsâ autem et mortui sunt.
Adv. Hær. v. 23.
THE SIX DAYS' CREATION.
39
produce an apprehension of the Creator in the minds of men,
suited to their capacity, He prefixed to his laws an account of
the creation, but that by reason of our incapacity to comprehend
fully such profound matters as it would be needful to advert to,
these were expressed in parables, enigmas and very abstruse
ways of speaking. He quotes the Rabbis of pious memory as
having said that it was not possible to explain to flesh and
blood the nature of the work of creation, for which reason the
Scriptures say absolutely, "In the beginning God created,” by
which words they meant to intimate that these matters are shut
up and not openly explained. He adds that words of ambiguous
meaning are often used in order that the vulgar, according to
their weak ability, might understand them in one sense and the
more enlightened in another. Then, when he comes to treat
more particularly of the work of creation, he lays down as a pre-
liminary, that everything that is said in the account of it given
by Moses is not to be understood in the literal acceptation,
according to vulgar apprehension, and again quotes the
Rabbis as saying, at the conclusion of the account of the sixth
day's work, "From the commencement of the book down to
this, it is the glory of God to conceal a matter." While, there-
fore, those who have acquired an insight into such matters are
bound to communicate their knowledge to others, they should
not do so openly and plainly, but by hints and indications such
as the Rabbis were wont to give. And he adds accordingly that,
in what he is about to say on the subject himself, he frequently
makes use of some one word or expression which is, as it were,
the hinge on which the whole matter turns, leaving all further
explanation to those whose proper business it is. In the course
of his remarks on the particulars described by Moses, he blames
some for supposing that time existed before the creation of the
world—an absurdity to which they were led by understanding
the enumeration of the days literally, while they could not
conceive how days could else be measured before the surrounding
1 Pp. 273-4. Ed. Buxtorf, 1629.
40
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
sphere and the sun were created.¹ He further intimates, as a
point of some moment, that the particle eth prefixed to the
heavens and the earth, in the first verse implies the creation
with them of all things contained therein. The conclusion he
draws from this is that all things were created simultaneously
and afterwards successively separated one from another. This
the Rabbis likened to the sowing of divers seeds together, which
afterwards germinated at different times. On this principle he
explains the difficulties arising from the enumeration of the
first, second, and third days, and quotes the Rabbis as saying
of the light created on the first day, that it denoted the
luminaries created on the first day but not suspended until the
fourth.3 That he thought the successive separation above
mentioned was one of description and not of creation, and the
suspending of the luminaries on the fourth day merely the
representation of the narrative, may be gathered not only from
his afterwards saying that the dividing between the waters men-
tioned in the seventh verse is not to be understood of a distinc-
tion or division of place, but of nature and form, but also from
his insisting on another saying of the Rabbis that "all the works
of creation were created in their stature, in their science, in
their grace and ornament." This he thinks was meant to
signify that, in their aggregate and severally, they were created
in their most perfect quantity, their most perfect form and their
most beautiful accidents. And this, he says, should be kept in
mind as a fundamental principle of no small moment. Doubt-
less it was one of those cardinal sayings which he said he threw
out from time to time without entering into a fuller explanation.5
4
2
1 P. 275.
2 Pp. 275-6.
3 Expressè scribunt in Bereschith Rabbah Sapientes nostri de luce quæ primo die
in lege dicitur creata esse; Ista sunt luminaria, quæ creata fuerunt primo die, sed non
suspendit ea usque ad diem quartum. p. 276.
4 P. 277.
5 Scitu porrò tibi necessarium in hoc negotio est illud quod Rabbini nostri inquiunt,
omnia opera creationis creata sunt in staturâ suâ, creata sunt in scientiâ suâ,ˆcreata
sunt in decore suo: quo innuere volunt, quòd, universa et singula, que Deus creavit,
in perfectissimâ suà quantitate, in perfectissimâ suâ formâ, et in elegantissimis suis
accidentibus creata sint. Diligenter itaque et hoc retine, quia non exiguum quoque
est fundamentum. P. 279.
THE SIX DAYS' CREATION.
41
1
In addition to these rabbinical notions one might adduce the
opinion of Philo, if he were not such a noted allegorizer. The
remarks of Josephus, to the same effect, will have more weight.
At the close of the Preface to the Antiquities, he tells us why
Moses had prefixed to his laws an account of the creation,
namely, that he might induce men by the contemplation of God
and of his most excellent works to endeavour to imitate Him as
far as it was possible for man to do. He says that in this
account the entire representation is conformed to the nature of
the universe, though in respect to some things Moses had wisely
spoken enigmatically, and in regard to others had allegorized
with becoming reverence, while he had in express terms set
forth such things as required to be directly explained.¹
He
adds that those who would enquire into the reasons of each
particular should enter upon a very extensive and philosophical
speculation, such as he promises to engage in on some other
occasion. That he regarded the first chapter of Genesis as
embracing some of the particulars expressed enigmatically or
allegorically may be gathered from his remarking, as has been
noticed, that the first day is described as one day and not the
first, for which he intimates that there was a particular reason,
which he reserves for the promised philosophical survey just
mentioned, and also from his remarking that after the seventh
day Moses began to speak physiologically, or according to the
truth of nature.2
To this retrospect of opinion as regards the interpretation of
the Mosaic Genesis, it remains only to add that the Jewish
translator Aquila appears to have favoured the notion of a
simultaneous creation of all things, from his translating by
ev kepaλaiw the expression ordinarily rendered "in the be-
ginning;" as if it were in one sum that God created the heavens
and the earth.
' Πάντα γὰρ τῇ τῶν ὅλων φύσει σύμφωνον ἔχει τὴν διάθεσιν· τὰ μὲν, αινιττομένου
τοῦ νομοθέτου ἀξίως· τὰ δὲ, ἀλληγοροῦντος μετὰ σεμνότητος· ὅσα δὲ ἐξ εὐθείας
λέγεσθαι συνέφερεν, ταῦτα ῥητῶς ἐμφανίζοντος. Sub fine Proemii.
* Καὶ δὴ καὶ φυσιολογεῖν Μωϋσῆς μετά τὴν ἑβδόμην ἤρξατο, περὶ τῆς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου
κατασκευῆς λέγων οὕτως---κ.τ.λ., i., 1, 1.
42
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
Enough has now been done to show that long before geology,
or even modern astronomy, presented the difficulties that of late
years have perplexed believers, and afforded a fancied triumph to
the infidel, for which believers have very much to blame them-
selves, there were those who saw abundant difficulties in the
way of a literal acceptation of the Mosaic statements, who could
yet be profound believers in the divine inspiration of Holy
Scripture and of this part in particular,-Jewish doctors,
Christian fathers, burning and shining lights of the Church.
VII. We are now in a position to return to the document
itself, which, as has been already shown, affords numerous indi-
cations that it was not intended to be taken in the strict
historical and literal acceptation of its statements. Putting
aside for the present the question of time, and looking only at
the works themselves as successively enumerated, it will be seen
that they are described according to a principle of classification.
But for the idea of temporal succession produced by the
reckoning of days, this classification could scarcely have escaped
the notice of any intelligent and observant reader. A very
simple but comprehensive and complete classification of material
creatures, from a terrestrial point of view and in accordance with
sensible qualities and appearances, is presented to us under the
form of a successive development, the succession being expressive
of the order in which the series is arranged. It is resolvable
into two parts, the successive particulars enumerated in the
second having severally, in the order in which they are placed,
a special relation to the successive particulars in the first. This
former part is in fact an enumeration of the so called Elements,
to which as a classification of material creatures the ancients
attached so much importance; and these, according to the
assumed character of the entire passage, are presented in their
concrete form, the progression being from the most subtle and
impalpable to the densest and most substantial.¹
1 That ouc, by understanding the Spirit of God in verse 2 to denote the air, might
sce the four elements in the heaven, earth, spirit or air, and waters, of the two first
THE SIX DAYS' CREATION.
43
GENUINE ALLE
First, light is specified, or, according to the dramatic character
of the representation, called into existence. Light and heat were
intimately associated in the conceptions of the ancients, being
naturally regarded as only different modifications of the same
element. Accordingly the word here used to designate light is
in several instances also used to denote heat and even artificial
fire, (Is. xviii. 4, xxxi. 9, xliv. 16, xlvii. 14, Ezek. v. 2); and it is
the light which constitutes day, and which, therefore, as coming
from the sun, is identified in men's ordinary conceptions with
the heat of the sun, that stands as the representation of this
element in the Mosaic description.
From this, the most subtle and imponderable, the sacred
writer proceeds to the denser but still subtle elements of air
and water. These, like the chaotic aggregate of creation which
at the commencement, with reference, as may be supposed, to
the subsequent orderly classification, is represented as existing
in a state of confused combination, are at first represented as
mingled and united together. In other words they are classed
together as possessed of common properties. The transparency
of air and water, the permeability of both by solid bodies, the
free motion of their parts amongst themselves, and the ready
conversion of water into an aerial substance in the form of
vapour would naturally lead to their being classified together;
while their separation into the firmament or expanse of the
atmosphere, and the waters, above the firmament, as rain or
clouds, and below it, as the water on the earth's surface, presents
these substances as different and distinct elements, though thus
classed together.
verses, we learn from the Liber Imperfectus of St. Augustine, De Gen. ad Lit., § 18:-
Tertia opinio de hoc spiritu oriri potest, ut credatur Spiritus nomine, aeris elementum
enuntiatum; ut ita quatuor elementa insinuata sint, quibus mundus iste visibilis
surgit, cœlum scilicet et terra et aqua et aer: non quia jam erant distincta et ordinata ;
sed quia in illius materia quamvis informi confusione, tamen exortura præesigna-
bantur, quæ informis confusio tenebrarum et abyssi nomine commendata est. Of this
unformed and confused material, as compared with the several creatures afterwards
separately brought into existence, he remarks in his unretracted work, De Gen. ad
Lit. Lib. V., v. 13,-Non temporali sed caussali ordine priùs facta est informis forma-
bilisque materies, et spiritalis et corporalis, de qua fieret quod faciendum esset.
44
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
And then from these fluid and elastic elements we are led to
the most solid and substantial. Earth, as the dry land, appears
and is covered with its vegetable clothing as a part of itself.
And thus we have an orderly classification of the elements,-
just what Josephus calls in the heading of his account of the
contents of this chapter, ἡ διάταξις τῶν στοιχείων,—as it were
a marshalling of the elements.
And now from this triad of light, of fluids aerial and liquid,
and of solid earth, the writer proceeds in the same order,
as it were to people each with its proper occupants, habitatores
eorum, as Thomas Aquinas says. First, light becomes occupied
by the heavenly luminaries, which may be regarded as dwelling
in light. Next in order, the waters and the air are respectively
peopled with the fishes and creeping things of the seas, and the
fowls that fly above along the face of heaven. It is only the
former which the waters are represented as producing; according
to the true rendering the fowls are not produced by the waters
but simply bid to fly aloft in the firmament. The similarity
of their motions in their respective elements, so different from
those of the terrestrial animals, and not the relation merely of
the seabirds to the waters, causes these to be classed together in
correlation to the waters and the atmosphere, which the likeness
of their physical properties had caused to be classed together
previously. And then, at last, appear the inhabitants of the solid
earth, which was already provided with its vegetable clothing
serving for their sustenance but treated as part of the earth itself
as directly growing from it. Thus the three last terms of the
series successively correspond with the three first, as the second
group of a comprehensive classification which includes all parts of
the visible and material creation. We have seen already how this
mutual correspondence of the three terms of each portion of the
series was slightly intimated by Thomas Aquinas, and more
distinctly by Mr. MacDonald, and how it has been strikingly
1" With equal truth and acuteness this natural philosopher places the creatures of
air and water in one class." Herder, as quoted by Mr. Rorison, in note p. 337.
THE SIX DAYS' CREATION.
45
displayed by Mr. Rorison as evincing the artificial structure of
the parallelism,—what might be called the antiphonal arrange-
ment of the strophes or stanzas of the composition. This view
of the poetical structure of the passage, so beautifully illustrated
by Mr. Rorison, is not incompatible with the more prosaic notion
of a classification based on the primitive and universal resolution
of material things into the four elements, here arranged accord-
ing to their order of density, and followed by what the Vulgate
calls ornatus eorum in corresponding order. This classification
of all material creatures is complete and natural as to the things
classified according to their apparent qualities and relations,
but still artificial in its arrangement as to both its parts. And
this artificial character of the arrangement, according to the
gradations of density in the first, and according to a certain
relation of the several members in the second successively to
those of the first, together with the reservation of the second
until the completion of the first, instead of a joint enumeration
of the particulars respectively related to one another, is so
unlike anything we know of the order and succession of the
works of God as manifested in the actual rerum concordia discors,
that of itself it leads us away from the notion that these things
were successively created in the same order in which they are
thus classified and marshalled by the sacred writer.2
1 This notion of classification appears in the extract from Herder, quoted by
Mr. Rorison in the note (k) of p. 336, which will be referred to again presently.
But the view of this classification which Herder gives in his Alteste Urkünde des
Menschengeschlechts is in the highest degree artificial and devoid of simplicity. To
present it in an intelligible English dress would be almost impossible.
2 This elemental classification, and the relation of the two successive series of
creatures, are implied, though with some indistinctness, in the following summary
of the six days' work by St. Augustine, in reference to which it is to be remarked
that the light of the first day was, according to what he regarded as the most probable
signification, lux rationalis, the faculty in general of reason and intelligence, whether
angelic or human: - In his verò quæ jam ex informitate formata sunt, evidentiùsque
appellantur creata vel facta vel condita, primùm factus est dies. Oportebat enim
ut primatum creaturæ obtineret illa natura quæ creaturam per creatorem,
non creatorem per creaturam posset agnoscere. Secundò firmamentum unde corporeus
incipit mundus. Tertiò species maris et terræ, atque in terrâ potentialiter, ut ita dicam
natura herbarum atque lignorum. Sic enim terra ad Dei verbum ea produxit ante-
quàm exorta essent, accipiens omnes numeros eorum quos per tempora exsereret se-
cundùm suum genus. Deinde posteaquàm hæc velut habitatio rerum condita est,
quarto die luminaria et sidera creata sunt, ut priùs pars mundi superior, rebus quæ
intra mundum moventur visibilibus ornaretur. Quinto aquarum natura, quia coelo
46
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
VIII. But if we are not to regard the succession of works as
a succession in respect of time, but simply of order in the nature
of the things enumerated, they being described in the widest
generality as kinds, and so inclusive not merely of the creatures
now existing according to the present order of nature, but of
all, extinct or varied or now existing, through whatever progress
of development, or manner of change, or course of succession
they may have passed into their present condition or may pass
hereafter, it is to be enquired what is the import of the simul-
taneous enumeration of the several days reckoned along with
them? It has been already noticed that there is a peculiarity
in the mode in which these days are specified, the first reckoned
being simply called one day, and the others indefinitely a
second, a third, and so on until the sixth,-a peculiarity which it
might be thought perhaps was intended to indicate, but at any
rate does not express more than, number irrespective of order;
the order in which they are actually placed being that in which
for another cause, namely that of classification, they happen to
be reckoned. It was also observed that, as regards the six days
of creation the writer abstains from, at any rate, expressly saying
that the works were actually accomplished on the respective
days reckoned along with them; while the most that is implied
in the words of the Fourth Commandment-"six days God made
heaven and earth, the sea and all that in them is"-amounts to
the assertion that the aggregate of the days occupied was six.
In fact, in the enumeration of the works and days, one of each is
simply set over against the other respectively. Works which
in their actual formation may have taken place wholly, or in part,
either simultaneously or successively, and in the latter case in any
order of succession, are, when separated and classified according
aerique conjungitur, produxit ad Dei verbum indigenas suos, omnia scilicet natatilia
et volatilia; et hæc potentialiter in numeris, qui per congruos temporum motus ex-
sererentur. Sexto terrestria similiter animalia tamquam ex ultimo elemento mundi
ultima; nihilominùs potentialiter, quorum numeros tempus postea visibilitur explicaret.
De Gen. ad Lit. V. v. 14. The elemental classification is here implied, only St.
Augustine regards the narrative as describing a potential creation before the actual
creation of time, while the view above given supposes a representation of things as
actually created in the order and succession in which they are classified.
į
THE SIX DAYS' CREATION.
47
to their several natures and kinds, represented as so many
separate days' work of the great artificer. We might almost
think that this was a purely metaphorical use of the day for the
work, if it were not for the statement at the close that God
rested on the seventh day from all his work. Mr. Rorison
indeed, relying on the poetical character and structure of the
composition, regards the days as not indicating any relation of
time whatever. "The days themselves are transfigured from
registers of time into definitives of strophes or stanzas,-lamps
and landmarks of a creative sequence,—a mystic drapery, a
parabolic setting,-shadowing by the sacred cycle of seven the
truths of an ordered progress, a foreknown finality, an achieved
perfection, and a divine repose." And then in reference to the
use made of the Mosaic Heptameron in the Fourth Command-
ment, he says, that this symbolism "becomes, in turn, to the
Jewish nation at the Exodus, the platform of the law of the
Sabbath. God's week is mystical, man's week is literal. But
the spiritual homology assumed is not disturbed by the inevitable
disparity of scale." But why inevitable? Plainly the days
may indicate real time just as much as the operations a real
creative work, that in fact had some real relation to time, whether
expressed or not in the narrative. Here is his weakest point
and our greatest difficulty. God's resting on the seventh day
from all his work, coupled with the words of the Fourth Com-
mandment—“ six days God made heaven and earth, the sea and
all that in them is,"-does seem to point to a closer relation
between the several works and the specified times, than that of
mere poetic figure or symbolism.
1
P. 336. In a note he extracts some passages from Herder, from which are
taken the following:-"To remove the false notion of days, let me observe what is
obvious to every one on a bare inspection, that the whole system of this representation
rests on a comparison by means of which the separations do not take place physically
but symbolically. As one eye is incapable of comprehending at one view the whole
creation, it was necessary to form classes, and it was most natural to distinguish in
the first place the heavens from the earth.
Thus this ancient document is
the first simple table of a natural order, in which the term " days," while it is sub-
servient to another purpose of the author, is employed only as a nominal scale for the
division."
48
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
But then, at any rate, it is to be observed in the first place, that
it is by no means clear that it is not with the issuing of God's
commandments, "Let there be light," and so forth, instead of
with the actual genesis of the creatures, that the specification
of time is intended to be connected, especially as the creatures,
at any rate the plants and animals, are described in the widest
generality of kinds, rather than as individual specimens of each
kind. Now the ascription to God of the utterance of such com-
mands is only a human manner of representing the determining
will of God, just as the resting from his work can only signify
that there existed no such will to create any other material
beings, beyond those included in the comprehensive enumeration
of the six days' work. God's relation to time is wholly different
from ours.
But even in ourselves a resolute purpose kept
steadily in view may with equal truth be assigned to any one
point as to another of the entire period during which it is thus
kept in view. Still more is this true in the case of the Almighty,
whose thoughts and purposes are ever present, and to whom yes-
terday, to-day and for ever are but one constant now. His deter-
mining will to create a world, all whose parts are resolvable into
the sixfold division we have presented to us in the Mosaic
Genesis, may with equal truth be assigned by him to six several
days as to one, and these in any order, all being alike one to
him. Assuming therefore this account to be a divine product,
as written under the inspiration of God,—and on any other sup-
position we have no concern to vindicate the truthfulness of the
document,—we may perhaps reasonably conceive that, for a special
reason, Moses may have been led by the divine Spirit to assign
God's determining will to create the several kinds of creatures
enumerated to the several days reckoned along with them, such
an accommodation not being likely to mislead those who are
capable of forming right conceptions of the Deity in relation to
time, while those who are incapable of such conceptions must
needs be dealt with in some manner of accommodation.¹
1 Such an accommodation to weaker minds is suggested by St. Augustine in the
Lib. Imperf. de Gen. ad Lit. § 28, as well as in a passage already quoted.
THE SIX DAYS' CREATION.
49
The nearer proximity, however, in the narrative of the specifica-
tions of time to the mention of the manifestation of the creatures
in their concrete state, may seem to some rather to indicate that
we should connect the mention of the days with the realisation
of God's will in the actual creation of the world, and with his
will itself only as exerted in that realisation in time. But then
it is to be considered that the creatures, though described in
their concrete state, are still described as kinds in a very wide
and comprehensive generalisation, and that notwithstanding
the impression which the narrative produces of an immediate
fulfilment of the divine commands, we yet have represented to
us the growth of vegetables as produced from the ground, and
of the living beings as if bred from the waters and from the
earth,—a
-a manner of production which suggests according to
our experience a slow and gradual process.¹ If then we are not
by this representation of a gradual process in the fulfilment
brought back to the purpose and will as existing in God rather
than as manifested in time, we are certainly not warranted in
supposing that the specified days denote the full and exact space
Referring to the already noticed words of the son of Sirach expressive of a simul-
taneous creation of all things, he says, "In ipsâ ratione operationem contemplatus
est in Spiritu Sancto qui dixit, Qui manet in æternum creavit omnia simul: sed
commodissimè in illo libro, quasi morarum per intervalla factarum à Deo rerum
digesta narratio est, ut ipsa dispositio, quæ ab infirmioribus animis contemplatione
stabili videri non poterat, per hujusmodi ordinem sermonis exposita quasi istis oculis
cerneretur." He had just before said, "Ubi est quod scriptum est, Subest enim
tibi cùm voles posse, si opus est Deo productione temporis, ut aliquid perficiat?
An omnia quidem tamquam in arte atque ratione perfecta sunt Deo, non in pro-
ductione temporis, sed in ipsà vi qua illas etiam res, quas non stare sed transire
cernimus, stabiliter efficit?
*)
St. Augustine, De Gen. ad Lit. Lib. Imperf., § 51, seems to have read at the
conclusion of the command to be fruitful and multiply, in v. 22, and immediately
before the mention of the fifth day, the words occurring after the mention of some
of the divine operations, et factum est sic. On this he remarks,—Hìc planè quivis
tardus jam evigilare debet ut intelligat quales isti dies enumerentur. Cùm enim certos
seminum numeros Deus animantibus dederit, servantes miram certo ordine constantiam,
ut certo dierum numero, pro suo quoque genere, et concepta utero gerant, et edita
ova calefaciant; cujus naturæ institutio Dei sapientiâ conservatur, quæ tendit à fine
usque ad finem fortiter, et disponat omnia suaviter: quomodo uno die potuerunt et
concipere, et utero gravescere, et parta vaporare atque nutrire, et implere aquas maris
et multiplicari super terram? Though this is grounded apparently on the place in
which the words et factum est sie were read by St Augustine in this verse, yet the
question which he asks is equally pertinent in reference to the germination of the
vegetable productions and the derivation of the living creatures from the earth and
waters, by some process of generation.
1
Japan
50
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
of time actually occupied in the production of each class of
creatures, only one, namely that of light, consisting of a singular
effect of creative power. Rather these days should be taken as
indicating days on which the several classes of creatures had
virtually begun to exist, or had fully attained their existence as
such. Some of the particulars comprised in any of these
classes may have been in existence longer than others, and
some simultaneously growing into their proper condition but
unequal in their degrees of contemporaneous development; yet
there must have been some one day on which each of these
classes might be more truly said to have virtually come into
existence, or else to have been completed and so pronounced
good in respect to that virtual existence or completeness, as in
other respects, than at any other time. Some of these days
may have been separated from others by indeterminate intervals,
but these intervals are overlooked, as periods during which the
classes in their comprehensive entireness did not yet exist;
they may have been all several, or some of them may have
been concurrent, but, in respect of the diversity of operations,
treated as different, the object not being to date any one of
these operations from any particular epoch; and even we might
suppose that all took place simultaneously, and that only one
actual day was repeated six times as diverse in the sixfold
diversity of the creatures enumerated, as we have seen St.
Augustine thought. In our conception there would be a real
diversity and succession in the same actual time thus severally
repeated in connexion with several distinctly conceived things
supposed to have happened in it. This diversity in conception
seems to have been the idea embodied by St. Augustine in the
extracts which are subjoined underneath.¹
Ita fortassè dictum est, et facta est vespera et factum est mane, dies unus, sicut
ratione prospicitur, ita fieri debere aut posse, non ita ut fit temporalibus tractibus.
De Gen. ad Lit. Lib. Imperfect., § 28. Dies ergo ille quem Deus primitus fecit
si spiritalis rationalisque creatura est, id est angelorum supercolestium atque virtutum,
præsentatus est omnibus operibus Dei hoc ordine præsentiæ, quo ordine scientia
quâ et in verbo Dei facienda prænosceret, et in creaturâ factâ cognosceret, non per
intervallorum temporalium moras, sed prius et posterius habens in connexione
THE SIX DAYS' CREATION.
51
And here too it must be remarked in regard to God's resting
from his works on the seventh day, that this was not a cessation
from work on that particular day, to be followed by a resump-
tion of work at its expiration, but a cessation from work in the
same sense for all time to come. That cessation was certainly
not a suspension of the exercise of Almighty power in respect
to the material world. It is as true that on every day in all
time God says of each of his works, and of every class of them,
Let it be, and it is, as this was true at the first creation of each.
It was only therefore a cessation from work in respect of the
virtual existence or completeness already, in their comprehensive
character, of those classes which embrace the whole material crea-
tion in all its diversity of kinds and under all the variations to
which it either has been or may hereafter be subjected. Hence
it is not said in Gen. ii. 1, 2, that God rested from working, but
from the works as completed, not ab operationibus, but ab operatis.
The word used () does not denote the doing, but the work
done, and is therefore used to express goods, and cattle in par-
ticular, as a man's acquisitions. As this rest-a rest to extend
to all subsequent time and consistent with the continued exercise
of creative power within the limits of those comprehensive classes,
which had virtually and in the completeness of their classification
already come into existence-is yet determined to the particular
day on which it might be said by reason of that completeness to
have commenced, so also the determining each several class to the
day when it might more strictly be said to have virtually begun,
or been completed in its character as a class, is consistent with
a previous or subsequent exercise of creative power within its
own particular limits. And if we may suppose these several
classes to have occupied unequal periods of duration in arriving
at the state assigned to each particular day, or in the subsequent
T
creaturarum, in efficaciâ verò Creatoris omnia simul. Gen. ad Lit. iv. 34. To
understand this difficult passage we must know that St. Augustine considered, as the
most probable supposition, that the light first created and distinguished from the
corporeal light of the luminaries, was spiritual light as existing in the cognitions of
Angelic Intelligences, to whose conceptions he here refers. The principle involved
holds equally good however in regard to the conceptions of men.
52
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
development summed up therein, there is the more reason for
treating as several the days which virtually sum up these diverse
ages, however in point of actual time any of them may have
been concurrent with others. Days that potentially represent
various and unequal periods are, without respect to their possible
concurrence, treated as if they were as diverse and several as
are the works assigned to them-works which in their poten-
tiality sum up and represent the continued operations of those
different periods. And this seems to be quite a natural pro-
ceeding, though its justification may lead us, as often happens
in such cases, into this somewhat abstruse discussion.
IX. It will be well now just briefly to re-state the conclusions
at which we have arrived. The creation of the material universe
is represented in the form of a cosmogony, but the formation
of its several parts, though described in this form, is set
forth not in the order and succession in which they were
actually brought into existence, but according to the principle
and in the order and subdivisions of a simple and comprehensive
classification. All things being thus resolved into six classes,
these classes, as severally enumerated, are respectively followed
by the enumeration of six days. And these days, up to the last,
being numbered not in a manner necessarily denoting the suc-
cession of time, but in such a manner as might be consistent
with any order of temporal succession, if not standing meta-
phorically merely to denote so many days' work as it were of the
great artificer, represent days to which the divine purposes or
commands for the creation of each class are determined, or the
days on which each began virtually to exist as a class, or was
completed in its character as such; there being good and
sufficient reasons, as will be presently shown, for adopting this
form of representation.
It is to be observed that the view which has been now pre-
sented not only sets us free from any difficulties arising from.
astronomical science or the successions of organic creatures
brought to light by geological discoveries, but also exempts us
THE SIX DAYS' CREATION.
53
from all anxiety in respect to any theories of the formation or
transmutation of species by development or selection, or arising
from any future possible discovery of a greater antiquity of the
human species than has hitherto been assigned to it. The
principle of classification and of days reckoned according to the
order of that, and not of the succession of time, renders us in-
different to the actual priority or subsequence of any particular
creatures to any others, and embraces in its comprehensive
generality the creatures of all periods, whether newly created or
derived from those that preceded them, the kinds enumerated
being still the same in their generality, however different the
species have become.
Professor Challis agrees as to the necessity of abandoning
the strictly historical view. But he substitutes for it, as we
have already seen, the supposition of what he calls a prophetical
account of creation. He supposes that the order of epochs is
not in accordance with the historic epochs of first appearances,
but with those of maximum developments. These he says must
embrace the ascending steps by which the maximum is reached
and the descending steps by which it declines. He is evidently
thinking of a mathematical formula which, if it includes the
maximum, must equally apply to the variable quantity in its
increasing and decreasing stages. But just as in such a mathe-
matical formula, when it is made to express the maximum by
supposing the increment of the variable to become evanescent,
the increasing and decreasing values of the variable are thus
excluded; so also the mere mention of the culminating point
in a series of progressing and then declining events of the same
kind, does not necessarily include, but rather excludes, the
ascending and descending steps, especially where we are not
informed that it is the point of maximum development of such
a series. Supposing however that the third, fifth and sixth
days works thus specially refer to the organisations of the
carboniferous, secondary, and tertiary geological periods, he
says the intervals over which their unfoldings were spread over-
54
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
lapped each other. This under an historical form is in effect a
classification, the principle of which is to group together the
like organisations of whatever period, and to arrange them in
the order of the periods in which these attained their maximum
developments. Some of the difficulties he has to contend with
in this supposition have already been noticed, and it is necessary
now only to observe that having thus adopted a principle
of classification according to geological periods, he is not able to
adhere to it. He is obliged to admit amongst the plants of the
carboniferous period, fruit trees, that do not belong to it, which
he justifies on the ground of similarity of nature; and to include
in the secondary period feathered fowl, which barely belong to
it as far as we know, cetaceans, which do not belong to it at
all, and fishes which belong alike to all periods. Thus having
first adopted one principle of classification, that of geological
periods according to maximum developments, he violates this
by including in his groups creatures classed with them on a
different principle altogether, that of similarity of nature and
habits. Driven to this by the exigencies of the case, it is strange
he did not perceive that as a scheme the Mosaic account agrees.
no better with geology than as a history, while the classification,
in the several groups of creatures out of their proper periods,
falsifies the indications of time as denoting the order of succession
on this supposition of a proleptic scheme, just as much as it does
the same indications regarded as representing the actual periods
of creation on the supposition of a literal history. This view is
therefore encumbered with quite as serious difficulties as those
which beset the historical interpretation; while sending us back
to the conceptions of the divine mind, it presents those concep-
tions in a form which, as regards the third, the fifth, and the
sixth days, is in effect a classification, the principle of which,
however, is not adhered to. It is not necessary to examine the
fanciful supposition of physical possibilities by which he en-
deavours to account for the other days. But if we are to ex-
plain any part on the principle of a classification, let it be one
THE SIX DAYS' CREATION.
55
that is consistent with itself and applies to the entire, as the
unity of character in the whole passage would lead us to expect.
We have seen that such a classification, formed in accordance
with the recognised principles of early times, and not drawing
on the scientific discoveries of later ages, is visible on the sur-
face of the narrative, if men would be content to look at that
surface before they begin to dig beneath it in search of geolo-
gical formations and organic remains.
It remains only further to consider whether there was any
reason why the account of the creation should have been thrown
into this particular form. We have already seen that a state-
ment which should be conformed to the absolute truth of nature,
or to any particular stage of subsequent scientific discovery,
was not to be expected nor likely to answer any useful purpose;
while it will appear that the representation actually given was
well calculated to answer ends that the sacred writer must have
had in view.
X. The first and greatest design, which one cannot but
believe that Moses at the outset would have had in view, was to
give the children of Israel just notions of God, and guard them
from the prevalent idolatry, to which, from the force of example
on every side, they were so prone, notwithstanding the divine
interpositions on their behalf coupled with the most stringent
injunctions to avoid it in every form and degree. The great
particular of divine truth with which he sets out, is therefore
the creation of the world at large, heaven and earth, the sea
and all that in them is, by the one living and true God, acting
as a single being, while the name by which he is described in
its plural form is expressive of the concentration in that one
God of all power, might, majesty and dominion, those several
powers which, as separately personified, were worshipped as dis-
tinct divinities by the heathen being combined in him, and the
several creatures, which were likewise objects of religious worship,
being all the work of that same God. However this truth may
be regarded as a deduction possible to human reason, and so
56
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
might be considered as not falling properly within the province
of revelation, it is certain that the people for whom Moses more
immediately wrote, surrounded as they were by universally pre-
valent idolatry, would find reason of itself practically insufficient
to maintain the truth. Under existing circumstances, at any
rate, it was necessary to make it an article of faith; and so it
comes to pass that in the New Testament we are told that the
creation of the world by the word of God is understood by faith,
the truth which it was needful to reveal not being the order or
manner of creation, but the fact that the worlds were made by
the word of God. And to impress the unity of God the more
forcibly on the minds of the people, in opposition to the preva-
lent idolatry, which consisted so largely of the worship of
natural objects, it was desirable not only to set forth the
creation of the world in its aggregate as the work of God, but
also to exhibit the several parts as each the result of the same
creative power. This is done by a simple, natural and complete.
enumeration of all kinds of creatures, each of which, with all its
varieties and in all its properties, is the work of God severally
wrought by him. And as the ancients, and more especially the
Eastern nations, with whom the Israelites were in contact,
delighted to exercise their imaginations in speculating on the
origin and relations of natural objects, their cosmogony being
blent with theogony and forming part of their religious systems,
so Moses also represents the process of creation and the enumera-
tion of its parts under the form of a cosmogony, that might sup-
plant or exclude the notions which else the Israelites might borrow
from their neighbours, corrupt and debasing as such notions of
the Gentiles mostly were. In giving his description of creation
this form, he uses much poetic imagery, and in an impressive
and dramatic manner represents the immediate and personal
agency of God.
And while this dramatic character of the
representation involved the appearance of succession in the
works performed as it were one by one, the erroneous impression
that might be caused by this dramatic representation of suc-
THE SIX DAYS' CREATION.
57
cessive acts, would be counteracted in the minds of those whose
advancing knowledge would make this correction needful, by
the assertion of the creation of all in the aggregate first. And
we have seen how in fact it was thus counteracted. And as it
was part of the poetic form of the description to represent the
works of nature as thus successively formed with dramatic action,
instead of presenting a simple enumeration of the classified
creatures, so the aggregate from which the several particulars
are to be distinguished is with like poetic imagery described as
a dark and indistinguished mass, over which, in keeping with
the dramatic character, a Spirit or breathing of God moves pre-
paratory to the subsequent division.
How needful it was thus to set forth the formation of the
heavens and the earth as the first effect of God's creative power,
we may judge from the fact that in the ancient systems of
theosophy, heaven and earth appear generally as the first exist-
ing deities or as a self-existing mass of unshaped and chaotic
matter. We need not more than remind the reader of the
Cœlum and Terra of the Greek and Roman mythologies,¹ derived
no doubt from Oriental sources, and of the personified Xáos² or
inanimate rudis indigestaque moles of Ovid. This primitive üλŋ, or
matter, was itself regarded as a deity³ by Grecian philosophers,
as well as the elements derived from it. In this they borrowed from
the Egyptians, who, as Diogenes Laertius informs us, on the au-
thority of Hecatæus, Aristagoras and others, considered matter
to be the principle of all things, from which the elements were
separated. These elements appear as deities not only by their
1 Thus Apollodorus begins his Bibliotheca by saying, Ουρανὸς πρῶτος τοῦ πάντος
ἐδυνάστευσε κόσμου· γήμας δὲ γῆν ἐτέκνωσε-κ.τ.λ.
2 The word translated "the deep" in Gen. i. 1, Dinn, has invariably the gram-
matical character of a proper name.
3 Thus Clement of Alexandria, Admon. ad Gentes, p. 42, B. Ed. Sylburg. tells us,
φιλοσοφίαν αὐτὴν, κενοδοξίας ἕνεκεν ἀνειδωλοποιοῦσαν τὴν ὕλην ἐφεύρωμεν. It is
plain that this is said not of the formation of material objects of worship, such as
statues or other images, an operation with which the philosophers had nothing to do,
but of the deification of matter in general. The words idol and idolatry in the
Jewish and Christian usage were not confined to images, but extended to false gods
in general.
* Diog. Laert. de Vitis Philosophorum lib. i. Proem. He says the Chaldeans also
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
58
identification with Vulcan and other mythological personages,
but also by their personification and treatment as deities in the
systems of the philosophers.
If we turn now to the particulars of the creation, as subse-
quently enumerated, we shall see how well calculated they were,
as thus exhibited, to counteract the prevailing idolatrous tenden-
cies. Light which, with its kindred heat, doubtless identified with
it in the popular apprehension, was worshipped as elemental fire, is
here represented as called into existence separately by the word of
God. Appearing ordinarily as an accident of luminous bodies, a
description of creation might well represent it as created con-
jointly with the sun, or overlook it altogether as implied in the
sun's creation and that of the other heavenly bodies. It is
described separately to guard men's minds against the reverence
which was attached to it by the fire-worshippers of the East.
Instead of a self-existing principle of a divine nature, it is
called into being by the word of God. Light and darkness,
night and day, the objects of joyful adoration and of super-
stitious dread in their personifications as deities, are themselves
mere effects of God's power. From Him they receive their
names, according to the poetical and dramatic character of the
narrative; in plain words they derived from God their specific
character. Then the idolaters of old had peopled the storms
and seas, the winds and the clouds with gods, which were in
fact these natural objects themselves assuming to the supersti-
tious apprehension of men's minds a personal existence. Every
river and mountain stream and rising spring possessed, or was
itself, a personal deity. The sky or firmament had its special
Numen, or rather was itself a god. And so when according to
the words of the Psalmist,-" in the morning I will direct my
prayer unto thee, and will look up,"-the worshippers of the
regarded fire, earth and water as their gods. Clement, ubi supra, tell us that some
of the philosophers regarded one, and some another, of the elements as gods, but that
Empedocles so regarded the four elements, adding veikos and pixía to the number.
Empedocles was a disciple of Pythagoras, who derived much of his philosophy from
Egypt. To the Egyptian notions we purpose to revert.
THE SIX DAYS' CREATION.
59
true God lifted up their eyes to heaven in prayer, the heathen
poet had no other interpretation for their uplifted looks than
this,-
"Nil præter nubes et cœli numen adorant.”
These, as likewise the work of God, lose their reputed character
as deities, or are freed from the occupation of the deities sup-
posed to reside in them, and men's minds are directed to the
worship of Him that made them, free from the superstitious
terrors of idolatry. And then, when the dry land is called by
the voice of God from beneath the waters, and by the same
command clothed with its vegetable productions in all their
variety, no longer may men dream that the mountains or the
oaks are occupied by gods, or that God can be like to images,
wrought of wood, or clay, or stone, or of gold and silver, that
are but parts of the same work of God. So too the host of
heaven, which men gave themselves up to worship, is here
represented as subordinated to this lower world, and set
in the heavens as if for the sole purpose of serving the uses
of man, as "lights to rule the day and to rule the night,
for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years.' No
doubt in the infinite multiplicity of design, and amongst the
endless mutual adaptations of all creatures, this might be truly
set down as one end of their creation. But evidently it is only
from a terrestrial point of view, and with regard to the limited
conceptions of the men of those days, and to guard against the
undue exaltation of these creatures of God and unconscious
benefactors of men into imagined deities, that they are here
represented as if made for no other end than to serve the uses of
mankind. And when by the same word of God the seas, and
the air, and the dry land were peopled by their living inhabi-
tants, men thus might learn not to think that God could be like
to birds or fourfooted beasts, or creeping things of the earth.
Of all, man alone is made in the image and likeness of God,
while he too comes into existence by no other means than the
rest, and so may not himself be deified; his likeness to God is
""
1X
60
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
but imparted, and his dominion over the inferior creatures only
a delegated authority.
While we may thus regard the view of the creation of the
world presented to us by the Mosaic Genesis as designed to
counteract idolatrous tendencies that might be occasioned
amongst the children of Israel by the pagan systems in general
of the ancient world, we might anticipate a more particular
adaptation of the account to the counteraction of such notions as
they were likely to have become imbued with during their sojourn.
in Egypt. Such a special adaptation will be quite apparent,
if we may regard the account which Diodorus Siculus gives
of the Egyptian physico-theology as a just representation of the
ancient Egyptian doctrines. He tells us that the Egyptians
believed that there were two eternal and primitive gods, the
sun and the moon, of whom the former was called Osiris, and
the latter Isis; that these order the whole world, nourishing
all things, and making them to grow in three seasons that
with an imperceptible motion complete their period, namely,
the spring, the summer and the winter, which though most con-
trary in nature to each other yet complete the year with a most
excellent harmony; but that for the production of all living
things each of these gods, the sun and the moon, most largely
contribute their nature, the one of the fiery and of spirit, the
other of dry and moist, and both in common of air, by which
all things are produced and nourished. Hence the entire body
of the nature of the universe is made up of the sun and the moon,
the five elements of which are the aforesaid spirit, and fire,
and dry, and moist, and aerial, while they regard each of these
also as itself a god. Now though there can perhaps be little
1 Diodorus, I. ιά. Ὑπολαβεῖν εἶναι δύο θεοὺς ἀϊδίους τε καὶ πρώτους, τόντε ἥλιον
καὶ τὴν σελήνην, ὧν τὸν μὲν Οσιριν, τὴν δὲ ῎Ἴσιν ὀνομάσαι ἀπό τινος ἐτύμου τεθείσης
ἑκατέρας τῆς προσηγορίας τάυτης.—τούτους δὲ θεοὺς ὑφίστανται τὸν σύμπαντα κοσμὸν
διοικεῖν τρέφοντάς τε καὶ αὔξοντας πάντα τριμερέσιν ὥραις ἀοράτῳ κινήσει τὴν
περίοδον ἀπαρτιζούσαις, τῇ τε ἑαρινῇ καὶ θερινῇ καὶ χειμερινῇ, ταύτας δ᾽ ἐναντιωτάτην
τὴν φύσιν ἀλλήλαις ἐχούσας ἀπαρτίζειν τὸν ἐνιαυτὸν ἀρίστῃ συμφωνίᾳ, φύσιν δὲ
συμβάλλεσθαι πλεῖστα εἰς τὴν τῶν ἁπάντων ζωογονίαν τῶν θεῶν τούτων, τὸν μὲν
πυρώδους καὶ πνεύματος, τὴν δὲ ὑγροῦ καὶ ξηροῦ, κοινῇ δ᾽ ἀμφοτέρους ἀέρος· καὶ διὰ
τούτων πάντα γεννᾶσθαι καὶ τρέφεσθαι. διὸ καὶ τὸ μὲν ἅπαν σῶμα τῆς τῶν ὅλων φύσεως
$
THE SIX DAYS' CREATION.
61
doubt that the informants of Diodorus may have wished to
identify these elemental gods with some of the Grecian deities,—
and accordingly Diodorus tells us that of the five just men-
tioned, spirit was Zeus, fire Hephæstus, earth Demeter, water
Oceanus, and air Athene,-still the subordination of these to the
sun and moon, and the fivefold enumeration, are certainly not
Grecian. Regarding this ancient Egyptian tradition, we
observe a marked contrast between it and the Mosaic Genesis.
This latter separates spirit from the cosmical elements, and
treats it not as a separate god, but as the operating energy of
the one supreme Creator,' and then it places the elements as
inanimate creations called into existence by the word of God;
while it is not until after these elements have been thus called
into being, that the sun and moon, from which, as the supreme
gods, the elements are derived according to the Egyptian system,
first appear on the scene; and then they appear not as the
source of existence to all creatures, but as serving the sub-
ordinate purpose of marking those times and seasons which
result from their motions, ruling not the universe but the day
and the night. Supposing the Egyptians to have had the
notions described by Diodorus previous to the time of the Exodus,
we can hardly think that a manner of representing the crea-
tion in such marked contrast with them, was not designedly
ἐξ ἡλίου καὶ σελήνης ἀπαρτίζεσθαι· τὰ δὲ τούτων μέρη πέντε τὰ προειρημένα, τό τε
πνεῦμα καὶ τὸ πῦρ, καὶ τὸ ξηρὸν ἔτι δὲ καὶ τὸ ὑγρὸν, καὶ τὸ τελευταῖον τὸ ἀερῶδες.
β΄, τούτων δὲ ἕκαστον θεὸν νομίσαι, καὶ προσηγορίαν ἰδίαν ἑκάστῳ θεῖναι κατὰ
τὸ οἰκεῖον τοὺς πρώτους διαλέκτῳ χρησαμένους διηρθρωμένῃ τῶν κατ' ῎Αιγυπτον
ἀνθρώπων.
C
·
Sir J. G. Wilkinson, ap. Rawlinson's "Herodotus," vol. ii., p. 243, second edition,
remarks," There is a striking resemblance between the Semitic nef, 'breath,' and
the Coptic nibe, nifi, nouf, spiritus; and between the hieroglyphic num (with the
article puum), and the veμa, spirit, which Diodorus says was the name of the
Egyptian Jupiter. He was the soul of the world' (compare mens agitat molem et
magno se corpore miscet)." Again p. 251, he says that on the tombs of the kings
there are few direct indications of the creation of the world "beyond some mysterious
allusions to the agency of Pthah (the Creator), or the representation of Noum (nef),
the divine Spirit, passing in his boat on the waters, or fashioning the clay on a
potter's wheel." The Spirit of God moving on the face of the waters in the Biblical
account, seems to have a striking relation to this representation of the Spirit passing
in his boat on the waters. The idea of the potter fashioning the clay, is presented to
us in the second chapter, where the formation of man and of the inferior animals is
יָצַר described by the rerb
62
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
adopted by the Hebrew Legislator with a view to counteract
such an idolatrous view of the nature of the material world.¹
XI. We may likewise find sufficient reason for connecting
with these sixfold operations of God's creative power the
enumeration of the six days, the import of which has been
sufficiently dwelt on already. This reason we shall find in the
prevalence of the hebdomadal division of time, and in the insti-
tution of the Sabbath. Though, as we shall presently see, there
is no evidence of the observance of the Sabbath amongst the
Gentiles, there is evidence of a prevalent observance of the week
as a division of time, an observance which originated in natural
causes. Macrobius, Somn. Scip. i, 6, dwells largely on the im-
portance and prevalence in nature of the septenary number,
and amongst many examples, instances the period of human
gestation and many circumstances connected with it as measured
by weeks, and the variations of the tides concurrently with the
quarters of the moon as taking place in weekly periods. Mr.
MacDonald, Creation and the Fall, p. 317, in order to connect
the observance of the week with a Sabbatical tradition supposed
to have been derived from the creation, and to have been anterior
to the Mosaic institution, objects to our supposing that the hebdo-
madal reckoning was derived from the subdivision of the moon's
period into four parts. Certainly such a subdivision of the full
period of a lunation would not be likely to suggest itself
naturally, this period being nearly thirty days. But though
the period of the moon's return to the sun would not suggest such
a subdivision, that of her return to the same place in the zodiac,
which is as naturally observable as her return to the sun, and
not affected by the apparent simultaneous motion of the sun in
"We have abundant evidence that the Egyptian theology had its origin in the
personification of the powers of nature, under male and female attributes, and that
this conception took a sensible form, such as the mental state of the people required,
by the identification of these powers with the elements and the heavenly bodies, fire,
earth, water, the sun and moon, and the Nile. Such appears everywhere to be the origin
of the objective form of polytheism, and it is especially evident among the nations most
closely allied to the Egyptians by position and general character-the Phoenicians,
the Babylonians, and in remoter connexion, the Indians on the one side and the
Greeks on the other."-Kenrick, Ancient Egypt, vol. i., p. 435.
THE SIX DAYS' CREATION.
63
the zodiac, would suggest such a division; and more particularly
as the phases of the moon, though depending on the joint motion
of sun and moon, and so connected with the monthly period,
present nevertheless at each quarter a visible mark by which
only seven full days are measured. And thus the hebdomadal
division of time would naturally have suggested itself, notwith-
standing the speedy separation that would take place between
the recurring weeks and the lunar phases, until the completion
of a cycle of which the ancients were not unobservant. He
thinks the division of the month into decads would have been
more natural, as indeed it would if regard were only had to the
period of a lunation; and he argues from the non-observance
of such a decimal division in favour of the Sabbatical origin
of what he considers the purely traditional observance of the
week. He seems not to be aware that this decimal division
was observed in historical times by the Athenians, the days
of each decad being numbered as first, second and so forth,
μηνὸς ἱσταμένου, μεσοῦντος, or φθίνοντος, the same division at
an earlier period being found in the 'Huépaι of Hesiod, who
speaks of ἡ πρώτη ἕκτη, ἕκτη ἡ μέσση, τετρὰς μέσση, φθίνοντός
θ' ισταμένου τε, πρωτίστη εἰνὰς, εἰνὰς ἡ μέσση and τρισεινὰς μηνός.1
This, though a likely, was an arbitrary division of the month,
while the weekly reckoning was, as we have seen, suggested by
natural causes, and therefore was more generally prevalent.
The evidences which have been adduced to show that the Gen-
tile nations attached any particular sanctity to one day in seven
are quite worthless. Clement of Alexandria indeed has given a
number of verses attributed to Hesiod, Homer and Callimachus,
to show that the seventh was considered a sacred day. But
Valckenaer, Diatribe de Aristobulo Judæo, has shown that
Clement copied from Aristobulus, a Jew, who no doubt fabri-
1 When Hesiod mentions μηνὸς δἰσταμένου τρισκαιδεκάτην, he evidently extends
the reckoning beyond the decad merely for the sake of metrical convenience. The
decimal division was also observed in Egypt. This division of the month into decads
must have been subsequent to the adoption of the solar year, as remarked by Sir
J. G. Wilkinson, who says that all the Egyptian monuments are later than the
division by decads.-See Rawlinson's "Herodotus," vol. ii., p. 253, second edition.
64
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
cated the most of them. Of the verses attributed to Hesiod,
one indeed is to be found in the "Works and Days,"
πρῶτον ἕνη τετράς τε καὶ ἑβδόμη ἱερὸν ἦμαρ,
only that Clement, or his author, incorrectly reads eßdoμov, as if
agreeing with μap. Hesiod, however, is speaking of days of
the month, not of the week. Of the pretended Homeric verses
none is Homeric except one, in which eßdopov is substituted for
TÉTρATOV. It is from Od. v. 262,—
τέτρατον ἦμαρ ἔην, καὶ τῷ τετελέστο ἅπαντα.
Such barefaced forgeries in regard to the well-known poets
Homer and Hesiod render it highly probable that this worthy
also forged the verses ascribed to Callimachus, or Linus as the
name appears in the quotation of the same passage by Eusebius.
At any rate Selden has shown that, whether forged or not, they
relate to the septenary number, to which the ancients attached
great importance for the various reasons enumerated by
Macrobius and others, and not to the seventh day. Yet it
would be hard to tell how many writers of character ever
since Clement's day down to Mr. MacDonald¹ have referred
to these verses as proofs of the universality of a Sabbatical
tradition, although one had only to refer to Hesiod for the
verse above quoted, to see that it had nothing to do with the
seventh day of the week. The familiarity of educated men with
the writings of Homer might have led them to suspect the rest.
The passage of Josephus against Apion, to which Mr. MacDonald
2
C
1 Creation and Fall, p. 315. "Hesiod, Homer, and Callimachus, apply the
epithet holy to the seventh day."
2 Joseph. cont. Ap. ii. 40. Οὐδ᾽ ἔστιν οὐ πόλις Ἑλλήνων οὐδητισοῦν οὐδὲ βάρβαρος,
οὐδε ἓν ἔθνος, ἔνθα μὴ τὸ τῆς ἑβδομάδος, ἣν ἀργοῦμεν ἡμεῖς, τὸ ἔθος οὐ πεφοίτηκεν.
It is evident from the whole passage that Josephus is speaking of an imitation of
Jewish customs, and this imitation is only asserted to have extended to all countries,
not to have been universally prevalent in the places to which it had reached. The
wide dissemination of the Jews in foreign countries would account for occasional
instances of imitation, if we suppose the author to have intended not merely the hebdo-
madal division of time, but even a weekly rest, which, however, he only expressly
attributes to the Jews. The tricessima sabbata of Horace, shows how widely
spread the knowledge of Jewish customs had become. Philo indeed, Пepl Kooμo-
ποιΐαs, speaks of the Sabbath as ἑορτὴ οὐ μιᾶς πόλεως, ἢ χώρας, ἀλλὰ πάντος. But
he is manifestly speaking of the fitness of its sanctification, as the birthday of the
world, тоû κóσμov yevéσiov, not of its actual observance as such.
ען
"
INS
THE SIX DAYS' CREATION.
65
also refers, does not assert more than the observance of the week
by the Gentiles, and implies rather an imitation of Jewish cus-
toms than any remnant of a primitive Sabbatical tradition.
The hebdomadal was, however, rather a religious than a civil
division of time,¹ and that in respect of all the days of the week,
instead of one in particular as in the case of the Mosaic insti-
tution. The Egyptians named each day of the week after one
of the seven planetary bodies, or after the god that presided
over or was supposed to animate each. Dion Cassius informs
us that the dedication of the days to the seven planets originated
with the Egyptians, but was in his day prevalent everywhere.
This, however, he concludes was not anciently the case,
inasmuch as the ancient Greeks, as far as he was aware, had
been wholly unacquainted with the custom. He says, however,
that it had now not only extended to all other nations, but had
become so firmly established amongst the Romans themselves,
that it seemed in some measure a native custom.2 It is im-
possible, however, that such a general prevalence as Dion
1 Thus in Egypt, the feast of Apis lasted seven days, as we learn from Pliny, viii.
46. De Api Bove. He says that at Memphis there was a part of the Nile, into
which every year golden and silver cups were cast diebus quot habet natales Apis:
septem hi sunt. Sir J. G. Wilkinson, in Rawlinson's "Herodotus," vol. ii., p. 283,
second edition, mentions also, to the same effect, the days of mourning for the dead
in Egypt, which were ten weeks or seventy days, the seven days which the head took to
float from Egypt to Byblus, as mentioned by Lucian, De Deû Syrd, and the period
of the mortification of the Egyptian priests, which, according to Porphyry, varied from
seven to forty-two days, that is from one to six weeks.
2 Τὸ δὲ δὴ ἐς τοὺς ἀστερας τοὺς ἑπτὰ, τοὺς πλανήτας ὠνομασμένους, τὰς ἡμέρας
ἀνακεῖσθαι, κατέστη μὲν ὑπ᾽ Αἰγυπτίων, πάρεστι δὲ καὶ ἐπὶ πάντας ἀνθρώπους,
οὐ πάλαι ποτὲ, ὡς λόγῳ εἰπεῖν, ἀρξάμενον. Οἱ γοῦν ἀρχαῖοι Ἕλληνες οὐδαμῆ αὐτὸ,
doaye èµè
ὅσαγε ἐμὲ εἰδέναι, ἠπίσταντο. ᾿Αλλ᾽ ἐπειδὴ καὶ πάνυ νῦν τοῖς τέ ἄλλοις ἅπασι, καὶ
αὐτοῖς τοῖς Ῥωμαίοις ἐπιχωριάζει καὶ ἤδη καὶ τοῦτο σφίσι πάτριον τρόπον τινά ἐστι,
κ.τ.λ. Epitome Xiphlini e Dionis Libro xxxviii. Ed. H. Steph. 1592, p. 7.
When Herodotus, Euterpe, lxxxii, says that the Egyptians were the first that
determined what month or day should be consecrated to each deity, he probably had
in view the naming of the days of the week after the seven planetary gods. If this
is what he refers to, it is evident the custom had extended beyond the Egyptians in
his time. He speaks of a custom generally prevalent which had originated with the
Egyptians, who would not have been spoken of as the first, if others had not followed
the practice. His mention also of the art of predicting from the days of nativity,
seems to confirm the supposition that he refers to the planetary names. Kenrick's
note, Egypt of Herod., p. 108, is as follows:-"The number of the gods was twelve,
and to each of them probably a month was assigned; and as the subdivision of the
month into periods of seven days must have been as ancient as the bondage of the
Jews in Egypt, and among the heathen nations has been always counected with the
number of the planets, this is probably what is meant by each day belonging to a
god."
5
66
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
describes, extending as we know to the nations of northern
Europe, with whom neither the Egyptians nor the Greeks and
Romans had much intercourse, could have been of very re-
cent origin. Joseph Scaliger, De Emend. Tempp. Prolegg, p.
xlvi., adduces an ancient oracle, to be subjoined presently, as
evidence of the very great antiquity of the use of the planetary
names of the days of the week amongst the Greeks, and also
cites in proof of the same antiquity these following verses
ascribed to Orpheus:-
Πρῶτα μὲν εἰ πρώτῳ ἐνὶ ἤματι φαίνεται ῎Αρης,
Μήνη δ᾽ ἐς τ᾽῎Αρην ἐπιτέλλεται, ἴσχεο δ᾽ ἔργων.
He says it was vulgarly supposed that the planets appeared on
their proper days, and that these verses plainly express the
occurrence of the new moon on Tuesday. The irregularity of
the order of the planetary names of the week days is accounted
for by supposing that they commenced with planetary hours,
beginning with Saturn as the most distant, and reckoning in
the order of the planets' distances to the moon as the nearest.
If we go over the twenty-four hours thus named after the planets
in succession, and repeat this proceeding continually, each day
will commence with one in the order in which the days of the week
are named.¹ However this may have been, the ancient oracle just
referred to, which Scaliger cites from Porphyry, shows that a
¹ See Dion, l.c., who says that the order might also have been derived from the
arrangement of the musical notes in the tetrachord. It may have been occasioned in
a more simple way than either of these accounts indicates. The planets in their order
from the earth outwards are resolvable into two series, depending respectively on the
two greater lights, the moon and the sun. If the first day was named from the sun
as the greater, and the second from the moon as next in importance, and then a day
in succession named after the planets in each series alternately, according to the order
of the planets, we should have the existing order of the names of the week days.
Thus:
The Earth.
2. The Moon.
4. Mercury.
6. Venus.
1. The Sun.
3. Mars.
5. Jupiter.
7. Saturn.
Scaliger, De Emend. Tempp., i. p. 8, arranges the planets in their order round
the periphery of a circle, and draws on the intervals a series of seven inscribed
isosceles triangles. From the sun at the right-hand angle at the base of one, proceed
to its vertex, where the moon will be found. From thence return to the other angle at
the base, and Mars will be reached. Similarly proceed from Mars to the vertex of
the next, and Mercury is arrived at, Jupiter being then reached by returning to the
base of the same, and so on. [Mercury was supposed by many of the ancient
astronomers to be placed between the Moon and Venus.]-See Note B., p. 248.
THE SIX DAYS' CREATION.
67
special act of worship, addressed to each of the deities by whose
names the days of the week were distinguished, was to be
offered on the day appropriated to him or called by his name.
The oracle is as follows:
Κληΐζειν Ἑρμῆν, ἠδ᾽ ἠέλιον κατὰ ταυτὰ
Ἡμέρῃ ἠελίου. μήνην δ᾽ ὅτε τῆσδε παρείη
Ἡμέρη, ἠδὲ Κρόνον, ἠδ᾽ ἐξείης ᾿Αφροδίτην,
Κλήσεσιν ἀφθέγκτοις, ἃς εὗρε μάγων ὄχ᾽ ἄριστος
Τῆς ἑπταφθόγγου βασιλεὺς, ὃν πάντες ἴσασιν,
Καὶ σφόδρα καὶ καθ᾽ ἕκαστον ἀεὶ θεὸν ἑπτακιφώνην.
It may not be as universally known as the oracle supposed,
that the king of the city of seven letters was Ostanes, a king of
Babylon; the god of the seven tones was Apollo, the god
of music, who as the god of the sun was to be worshipped on
every day, while each of the others was to be invoked on his
own particular day. Thus every day of the week was sanctified
by a special dedication to a heathen deity; and as this custom
appears to have originated in Egypt, where, at any rate, the
planetary names were given to the days of the week, we might
expect that Moses would endeavour to break off all association
of the week days with this idolatrous worship. Accordingly, he
as it were consecrates each working day to the glory of God by
connecting it with one of the great works of creation, according
to the sixfold partition which he adopts; while he devotes the
seventh to the exclusive worship of God, ordaining with this
view the Sabbatical rest, and enforcing that rest by the rest of
God himself, which followed the works of creation.¹
**
"
1 The words of our Lord recorded by St. John, vii. 22, 23, seem plainly to imply
that, in his view, the Sabbath was not of pre-Mosaic institution. He says, "Moses gave
you circumcision, not because it is of Moses, but of the fathers, and" (Illud kal est
rationale; quasi dicat, propterea reverentiâ patrii instituti opus fucitis Sabbato, Grot.
in loc.) "ye on the Sabbath-day circumcise a man. If a man on the Sabbath-day
receive circumcision, that the law of Moses should not be broken" (without breaking
the law of Moses, Margin, Eng. Vers.) are ye angry with me because I have made a
man every whit whole on the Sabbath-day? Evidently our Lord's argument is
founded on the priority of the institution of circumcision to that of the Sabbath.
As the prior institution of circumcision on the eighth day was observed at the expense
of the observance of the Sabbath, a fortiori, should an act of benevolence be per-
formed as obligatory by a still prior law, the law of nature; quod opus continetur in
naturæ præceptis, quæ antiquiora sunt ipsâ circumcisione, sicut circumcisio est
antiquior rigido otio Sabbati per Mosem imperatum, ac propterea Sabbato præfertur.
Si lex ritualis cedit rituali antiquiori, quanto magis legi per naturam cordibus
inscriptæ. Grot. in loc. In using the words rigido otio, Grotius does not merely
68
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
1
When God is said to have "blessed the seventh day and
sanctified it, because," according to the English version, "that
in it he had rested from all his works," it may be remarked
that the particle rendered because does not necessarily signify
more than as; while in the fourth commandment, the like
particles there used do not of necessity signify more than
according as, followed by so: "according as God made heaven
and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, six days, and rested
on the seventh day, so God blessed the Sabbath day." The
Sabbath is enforced by the example, rather than ordained in
consequence of the six days' work of creation followed by a day
of rest. Hence when the commandment is repeated, this con-
sideration is dropped and another substituted. Nor can we
justly impute to this use of the description of the creation, under-
stood according to the principle of interpretation which has
been now applied to it, anything like a pious fraud. The great
stress of the example, as enforcing the observance of the
Sabbath, must after all be laid, according to any interpretation
of the passage, upon the sixfold partition of the works, and
the completeness of their enumeration in the six divisions
set forth therein. For anything like a real rest on God's
part after the creation, as distinguished from his active
operation during it, is quite out of the question, as we
have already seen. When our Lord was accused of break-
ing the Sabbath, his defence was, "My Father worketh
hitherto and I work." Ever since the Creation he and his
Father had worked just as much in the sustaining of the world,
mean the superstitious observance of the Jews, but the law as given by Moses. And
our Lord plainly assumes for the argument, that except for the precept respecting the
performance of circumcision on the eighth day, the Sabbath would have been broken
by their circumcising a man on it. The reading of the margin of the English version
is founded on the supposition that in Iva µm Avon, the conjunction is not used in a
telic sense, but ecbatically, so as merely to denote the effect. This is more consistent
with the import of the passage in general, but the telic sense is admissible, as Moses,
according to the words of the Lord, adopted the prior law of circumcision.
1 [When the particle is used to express simple likeness, it is usually abbreviated
into the prefix ?. But in many cases the full form is used in this sense, sometimes
with and sometimes within an Apodosis.-See in the original Ps. lii. 11,
Prov. i. 17, 19, xxiii. 27, xxx. 33.]
..
THE SIX DAYS' CREATION.
69
and on the first and each succeeding seventh day, as on all
1
other days, as in its first creation. God's only work therein
was to speak and it was so.
It would be absurd, St. Augustine
says, to call that labour, in speaking of a man, and how much
more in respect to God. His work was only to will, which is
all that is meant by his speaking the word. His rest consisted
only in the completeness of the works,2—a completeness as
described and enumerated, rather than a completion as accom-
plished, the works themselves having ever since been in a state
of progress and development, individuals decaying and being
superseded by new, if not species becoming extinct and new
ones coming into existence in their place as in the succession
of the geological periods, which some, however, would put
before the seventh day's rest. But, at any rate, in all the
ordinary changes that we see taking place around us, in all the
processes of nature, God, in whom we live, and move, and have
our being, is still a present and acting power; for we cannot
exclude from our notion of the operation of general laws the pre-
sent activity of God. To suppose that inanimate creatures, once
for all impressed with certain powers, continue thenceforward
of themselves, blindly and insentiently, to act and re-act, is
inconsistent with all our conceptions of power and activity,
which are derived entirely from what we experience in our-
selves—the conscious action of thinking and willing beings.³
1
Numquid enim dici vel credi fas est. Deum laborasse in operando, cùm ea quæ
supra scripta sunt condidit, quando dicebat et fiebant.--Nimis absurdi deliramenti
est istum vel hominis, nedum Dei, laborem putare. Gen. ad Lit. iv. 8.
* Hence, with reference to the well-known belief of the ancients regarding the
perfection of the septenary number, St. Augustine says. In septimo autem die, id
est, eodem die septies repetito, qui numerus etiam ipse alià ratione perfectus est. Dei
requies commendatur. De Ciritate Dei, xi. 31.
Sir Isaac Newton in the third of his Letters to Bentley remarks, "It is inconceiv-
able that inanimate brute matter should, without the mediation of something else, which
is not material, operate upon and affect other matter without mutual contact, as it must
be, if gravitation, in the sense of Epicurus, be essential and inherent in it. And this is
one reason why I desired you would not ascribe innate gravity to me. That gravity should
be innate, inherent, and essential to matter, so that one body may act upon another
at a distance through a vacuum, without the mediation of anything else, by and
through which their action and force may be conveyed from one to another, is to me
so great an absurdity, that I believe no man, who has in philosophical matters a
competent faculty of thinking, can ever fall into it."
If, as the physical properties of matter seem plainly to show, there is no actual
M
70
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
Hence the assigning of a day to each of the six works enu-
merated, on any such principle as has been suggested, even
if done with special view to the institution of the Sabbath,
would be quite as real a ground on which to rest the Sabbatical
observance of the seventh day, as the attributing a cessation
from work to God, which, after the manner of God's work,
could have had no real existence at all, his work being, as we
have seen, a perpetual rest, and his rest a perpetual work. And
even if no mention of days had been made at all, the six-fold
partition into which, as we have seen, the entire material
creation naturally resolves itself would have afforded as real a
ground of enforcing a seventh day's rest, after six days' work,
as the enumeration of what, according to the preponderating
opinion of the reconcilers of Moses with modern science, were
really not days at all, but indefinite periods-periods of vast and
unequal extent, not separated from one another by any clear
distinguishing mark, but running on in an unbroken lapse of
ages, by reason of the absence of any decided break of continuity
in the gradual transition of the works of creation from one
condition to another. These lengthened spaces of time, not
distinguishable by recurring epochs of uniform and equable
periodicity, are really only distinguished by the diversity of the
successive operations, which, as such, in any order of succession,
can only be resolved into six, to correspond with the six days'
works of Moses, by the most forced and arbitrary suppositions,
diversified according to the ingenuity of different interpreters.
On the other hand, it has been shown that the narrative itself,
viewed in connexion with that of the second chapter, presents
ample indications-indications observed by interpreters of all
contact between its ultimate particles, or points of attraction and repulsion, into
whichever of these it may be resolvable, these ultimate particles or points must
mutually operate through a real vacuum. Hence all the operations of matter would
be involved in the inconceivable absurdity Newton speaks of, except on the supposi-
tion of the constant action of an immaterial agent. At any rate, the continued will
of God that things should go on to act in their settled laws and order, is as much his
immediate operation, as the will that they should begin to exist and act was at their
first creation.
THE SIX DAYS' CREATION.
71
ages-that it was not intended to be taken in the strictly literal
and historical acceptation. The fact that such indications are
afforded suffices to repel any imputation of deception, as involved
in the use of it to enforce on the Israelites the observance of the
Sabbath.
XII. If the views now put forward be correct, the first
chapter of Genesis ceases to be the occasion of anxiety to the
advocates of the inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, or of attack
on the part of unbelievers. We may fearlessly allow Science to
pursue her course in a province wholly different from that with
which revelation is concerned; and our views of the authenticity
or genuineness of this part of the sacred writings, or its Divine
inspiration, will be formed solely on considerations afforded by
an enlightened criticism and an honest interpretation of the
testimonies on which its claim to be a part of the Holy Scripture
rests, together with a due estimate of the weight to be attached
to such testimonies. For the result of such a criticism and
weighing of evidences there is no need of fear. There is every
cause to fear for the consequences of forced interpretations and
multiplied hypotheses to effect what, after all, must be but a
conjectural and provisional reconciliation between the ever pro-
gressing results of scientific investigation and the statements of
a document written, as far as human authorship is concerned,
in total ignorance of such discoveries as science has recently made,
and primarily for a people who lived ages before those discoveries
were dreamed of. To suppose that because, as we firmly believe,
the spirit of inspiration presided over the composition of this
document, it must, contrary to what we find in any other part
of the Bible, anticipate the discoveries of future ages in a
province wholly foreign to that with which revelation is properly
concerned, would, as has been already shown, be contrary to all
antecedent probability. It would also, as we have seen, render
its statements subjectively false to the people of its own and
many succeeding ages, who could not possibly understand them
in their true sense, and who have, in fact, up to nearly the
72
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
present day, understood them in a sense wholly at variance with
the modern revelations of science. And this would have been
done in the interest of some favoured age of scientific activity, the
present alone, of course, being deemed worthy of such a privilege;
while beyond this favoured age, if its supposed discoveries should
in turn be superseded by more extended inductions and larger
views of physical operations past and present, the narrative
must again become similarly untrue to all future readers, as
such a narrative must necessarily be to the readers of any age
either subjectively or actually, according as its statements
might be conformed to actual truth as yet undiscovered, or to
the existing imperfect or mistaken views of nature which the
men of any age have formed for themselves. While such an
anticipation of scientific conclusions would be thus not only
beforehand unlikely, but practically useless, except for the
scientific men of some particular age, those very scientific
men in general, in whose interest this anticipation of their
investigations is supposed to have been made, are only likely to
be disgusted by the futile attempts that have been resorted to in
order to show the conformity of the sacred narrative with their
discoveries. It is a dangerous thing to stake the character of
the Bible at large, and the whole doctrine of inspiration, on
such futile attempts, and such forced and shifting interpretations
of this portion of it. The least evil likely to result from perse-
vering in such attempts is the abandoning altogether of this
particular portion as a part of the Sacred Scriptures, and its
relegation to the ranks of apocryphal and supposititious writings.
The foregoing attempt to withdraw the passage entirely from
the operation of such efforts is made in the hope of contributing
to maintain this noble representation of the Genesis of Creation
in its time-honoured and hallowed place, as the sublime and
befitting Exordium of the Sacred Volume.
** Before passing from this part of our subject, it will be
"
1
1
THE SIX DAYS' CREATION.
73
well to subjoin one or two remarks on a few expressions in this
passage, for the most part not already noticed, which in some
measure bear on the foregoing discussion.
Gen. i. 1. The word ', commonly rendered "In the
beginning," has been the occasion of much discussion, especially
amongst the earlier interpreters. It would be useless to state
the several opinions that have been given of its meaning; but
that of Philo may be instanced, as it falls in with views already
set out in full. In his work, Περὶ Κοσμοποιΐας, he first
remarks, in respect to the six days, that God had no need of
time for the performance of his works, which would be accom-
plished instantly on his commanding, or even willing them to
be; but that things having once been made, required orderly ar-
rangement, and that number is akin to order,—Toîs yɩvoµévois
ἔδει τάξεως, τάξει δ᾽ ἀριθμὸς οἰκεῖον. After discussing this and
other particulars, he comes to the question,-Why it is said that
God made the heavens and the earth ev apx?? and he says that
this cannot mean the kind of beginning some suppose, την KаTà
Xpóvov, inasmuch as time did not exist before the world, but
either began with it, or after its creation. If then, he says,
"the beginning" is not to be understood in respect of time, it
is probably to be understood in regard to number,—ei d'àpxǹ µǹ
παραλαμβάνεται τανῦν ἡ κατὰ χρόνον, εἰκὸς ἂν εἴη μηνύεσθαι τὴν
κατ᾿ ἀριθμόν. Thus in his view the heavens and the earth stand
first in numerical order, at the head of a classified enumeration
of created things.
εν
Maimonides takes a different view of the meaning. He says
that a beginning is spoken of in respect to something of which
it is the beginning, or which commences with it, though it does
not precede it in time. Hence the word Reshith is used, which
is derived from Rosh, a head, this being, in regard to position,
the beginning, or first part of living things. The world, he, like
Philo, says, was not created in the beginning in regard of time,
as time itself is of the number of created things. Hence the ex-
pression Bereshith is adopted, in which the proposition is Beth
74
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
1
vasis seu instrumenti, and the true meaning of the sentence is, In,
or with, a beginning God created the heavens and the earth,—an
explanation suited to indicate the newness of the world. Plainly
he takes the word in its indefinite form as without the article,
and supposes the meaning to be that the world was not eternal,
but had a beginning,—a sense which we have already seen,
p. 37, was attributed to it by Origen, namely, quòd ex certo
tempore creata sunt omnia quæ videntur. The two particulars, it
is to be observed, which are essential to the explanation of
Maimonides, and are plainly implied in his words, are that the
beginning meant by Reshith is the early or commencing part
of the thing of which it is the beginning, and that the beginning
here spoken of is to be understood indefinitely as a beginning.
This it was not easy to express in the Latin of Buxtorf's
translation; but it is manifestly implied.
Dr. M'Caul, Aids to Faith, p. 200, lays great stress on this
absence of the article, as the word is written with the Masoretic
vocalisation. He says, "Here it is necessary to observe that
Reshith, the Hebrew word for 'beginning,' is in the original
without the definite article. The antiquity and correctness
of this reading are proved by the Septuagint, Chaldee, and
Syriac versions. The uniformity of the reading, and the care
with which it had been preserved for centuries-notwithstanding
the natural temptation to supply the article-testify that there
was an uniform traditional meaning attached to it, different
from that possible, if the word had the article." The absence
of the article is no doubt singular, as the only other instance
where the word has not a pronominal suffix, or a genitive after
it to which it transfers the article when it will bear it, and yet
1 Scito ante omnia, quòd differentia magna sit inter Primum et Principium. Nam
Principium dicitur de re, cujus est principium, vel cum quâ incipit, licet tempore illam
non præcedat; verùm Primum dicitur propriè de eo tantùm quod tempore præcedat.
De Principio autem docet vocabulum Reschith, quod derivatur à Rosch Caput, quod
situs ratione principium est animantium. Mundus non creatus est in Principio
temporali (temporis) sicuti declaravimus; tempus enim est ex numero creaturarum.
Ideò dicitur, Bereschith creavit Deus; ubi præpositio inseparabilis Beth est Beth
vasis seu instrumenti: et vera illius loci expositio est hæc: In principio creavit Deus
superiora et inferiora: Expositio conveniens novitati Mundi. More Nebochim, iii. 30.
THE SIX DAYS' CREATION.
75
wants the article itself as here, is Is. xlvi. 10. And there the
absence of it is probably due to the poetical character of the
composition. He supposes the absence of the article here
renders it equivalent to the 7 by which Onkelos represents
it, the meaning being in antiquities, in former times, or as Dr.
M'Caul will have it, on account of the abstract form of the word,
in anteriority; the design of this form of expression having been,
as he thinks, to avoid any reference to the order in which things
were created. But then it is to be observed, that though ab-
stract in its form, this word is always used in a concrete sense,
as Maimonides teaches us above, to denote the earlier part of any-
thing, as of a year, a series of events, a person's life, or the produce
of the ground. Though it has a seeming abstract use in Isaiah
xlvi. 10" Declaring the end from the beginning," MUNTA
אַחֲרִית yet even here the sense is really concrete. As אַחֲרִית
does not mean simply posterior time, but the events of a future.
time, the latter part of the history referred to, so Reshith even
here denotes the earlier part. If the word in Gen. i. 1 had
the article, it would denote the earlier part of the world's
existence; without it, the acceptation, as a note of simple
anterior duration, is quite conjectural. And it was probably
this which made Aquila, a Jew by birth, who professed to
translate with scrupulous exactness, render the word by the
expression already mentioned, èv repaλaíw, in one sum. Re-
garding the unusual manner in which the word is employed as
indicating an unusual signification, he had this not infrequent
signification of the concrete in Hebrew, which appears as
in the Chaldee of Dan. vii. 1, to suggest a like meaning
for Bereshith here. Translating thus according to the abstract
form of the word, and without the definite article, we should
render it, "In a totality God created the heavens and the earth."
And it may have been with an allusion to this passage, similarly
understood, that the son of Sirach, in a sentence already quoted,
and so much relied on by some of the writers whose notions
have been laid before the reader, said, ὁ ζῶν εἰς αἴωνα ἔκτισε τὰ
1
76
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
πάντα κοινῇ, the adverb κοινῇ being used in the sense of
conjointly.
It is to be remembered, however, that the absence of the
article from Bereshith is purely traditional. The word without
the vowel points gives no indication whether it should be read
with or without it. But while Dr. M'Caul correctly speaks of
the indefinite reading as traditional, he is wrong in citing the
ev ȧpxn of the LXX. as an evidence of the antiquity of the tradi-
tion. The forms ἀπ᾿ ἀρχῆς, ἐν ἀρχῇ, ἐξ ἀρχῆς, κατ᾿ ἀρχὴν, used
as adverbs, habitually reject the article, as apyn by itself also
sometimes does. Hence, even if the LXX. had read the Hebrew
with the article, they would as naturally have used év ȧpxy with-
out it, as if they had supposed it absent from the Hebrew.
We may, therefore, take the LXX. as probably representing
the definite reading, from their rendering by apyn, and Aquila
as following the indefinite reading, and so adopting a different
sense of the word Reshith. Grotius translates as if the first
clause was the protasis and the second the apodosis of a compound
sentence: "When first God created the heavens and the earth,
the earth was without form and void." But the position of the
noun before the verb in the second clause negatives the supposi-
tion that it is to be thus connected with the first.
"}
The use of the particle cth, as a sign of the accusative, pre-
fixed to the words "heavens
and " earth in this verse, and
to so many other of the objects of creation in this account, may,
perhaps, be not without significance here, though possibly often
employed in cases where it can add no force to the expression.
This particle, in its primitive meaning, denotes the very ex-
istence of that to which it is prefixed, whence the word to
which it is prefixed is used not only as an accusative,
but as the subject to a neuter or passive verb. Thus Fuerst,
in his Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon, says it is properly a
substantive, denoting "existence, being, essence, body." Hence
it gives the article to the word following, even when that
would else be indefinite, as governing it in the construct state.
""
THE SIX DAYS' CREATION.
77
Instances of this frequently occur; but as we shall have occasion
to discuss this matter more fully hereafter, it will be unneces-
sary to dwell on it here.
Another word occurs in this verse which never, at least in the
singular number, has the article prefixed. The deep or abyss,
Dinn, has thus the character of a proper name, which the word
probably originally was, representing the personal Chaos of the
ancients. Here, however, it appears as a part of the created
heavens and earth. The divine influence which moves on the
face of the waters, whether expressing an immediate agency of
God, or a physical wind produced by him, is also without the
article. Thus the Dhere mentioned is not the personal
Spirit of God, as in that case the article would have passed over
to Elohim, which takes the article regularly when governed in
stat. constr. by a definite noun.
The form of the verb in the clause, "the earth was
without form and void," seems opposed to the notion that, after
a first orderly creation, the relics of which are contained in the
rocks, the earth was reduced to a state of confusion, out of
which the present order of things was produced by a new
creation. Dr. M'Caul, Aids to Faith, p. 208, seems to favour
this notion. He says, "If Dathius's translation, 'The earth had
become desolation and emptiness,' be correct, it would follow
that this was not the earth's original state." In a note he says
that this is supported by the fact that several times in this
chapter the same verb has the force of yivoµai, fio. But surely
the pluperfect tense, had become, could only denote some time
previous to the only particular already mentioned, namely, the
creation itself; while, on the other hand, a subsequent reduction to
a state of desolation would be properly expressed by a future with
the vau conversive. Plainly the natural meaning is that the
state described by the words tohu vabohu was simultaneous with
1
1 Mr. J. J. Stewart Perowne has also just shewn in a very satisfactory manner the
invalidity of Dr. Pusey's reasons for adopting this interpretation, in the "Contem-
porary Review," No. L., Art. "Dr. Pusey on Daniel the Prophet.”
78
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
the creation itself of the heavens and the earth. This state was
not one of desolation produced by destruction, but by the
negation of light, and of the living things that dwell upon the
earth. Hence the LXX. render the words tohu vabohu by ảópaToS
καὶ ἀκατασκεύαστος. In whatever way the light and the other
creatures came into existence, however the vegetable and animal
creatures were produced, whether simultaneously or progres-
sively, by development or independently, in a long period or a
momentary space of time, plainly in the order of things the earth
itself was prior to the creatures upon it, the heavenly bodies to
the light proceeding from them whether by emanation or by
transmitted motion. The same creative power which brought
the heavens and earth into existence was needed to superadd to
them the light, the plants, and the animals by which they are
occupied. Thus, in this striking and highly dramatic repre-
sentation there is an historic basis even in regard to time, as we
have already seen there is in respect to the six days' work,
however different that relation to time may have been from the
orderly progress of events as represented by the operations of
successive days.
(v. 6.) The yp, expanse or firmament of v. 6, we have treated
as denoting the atmosphere. A difficulty has been felt in
understanding it thus, from the fact that the LXX. have trans-
lated the word by σrepéwμa, this rendering having in turn
become the firmamentum of the Vulgate; and it has been
supposed that a solid sphere, by which the heavenly bodies
were supported, was thus expressed. But the difficulty has
arisen from a misconception of what the LXX. intended by
σтеρéwμа. They certainly did understand something solid;
but it was solid in the mathematical sense of the word, as
expressed regularly by the adjective σrepeòs denoting the pos-
session of the three dimensions of length, breadth, and thickness
or height, and opposed to a mere surface. Here the word
σTEρéwμa signifies an expanse spread into these three dimensions,
as distinguished from the face of the waters previously men-
THE SIX DAYS' CREATION.
79
tioned. For thus understanding the σrepéwµa of the LXX. we
have the authority of another Alexandrian Jew. Philo, IIepì
Kooμoñoiias, tells us that, as the first and most excellent part
of the world, the Creator made the heavens, which he properly
called στepéwµa, as being corporeal; for body is naturally solid,
as having three dimensions, the notion of a solid or body being
nothing else but what is extended in every direction. Properly,
therefore, the corporeal and sensible, as contrasted with the in-
corporeal and mental, is called στερέωμα-Καὶ πρῶτον αὐτοῦ τῶν
μερῶν, ὃ δὴ καὶ πάντων ἄριστον, ἐποίει τὸν οὐρανὸν ὁ Δημιουργὸς,
ὃν ἑτύμως στερέωμα προσηγόρευκεν, ἅτε σωματικὸν ὄντα· τὸ γὰρ
σῶμα φύσει στερεὸν, ὅτιπερ καὶ τριχῆ διαστατόν. στερεοῦ δὲ καὶ
σώματος ἔννοια τὶς ἑτέρα πλὴν τὸ πάντη διεστηκός; εἰκότως οὖν
ἀντιτιθεὶς τῷ νοητῷ καὶ ἀσωμάτῳ τὸν αἰσθητὸν καὶ σωματοειδῆ,
τοῦτον στερέωμα ἐκάλεσεν. The Vulgate rendering of firma-
mentum is due, of course, to this misapprehension of the meaning
of σTEρéwμa as thus used by the LXX.
(v. 14.) It has been alleged that in verse 14 there is a change
of tense in the second verb, intended to hinder the notion that
the sun had not been created previously. This is an instance
of the means by which the difficulties attending the prevalent
mode of interpretation are got over, whether due to imperfect
knowledge, or the necessity of making some desperate effort.
In the description of the actual fulfilment of the Divine com-
mand respecting the heavenly bodies, there is no such change
of tense. The work succeeds the command in its due historical
sequence according to the manner of representation adopted
throughout, the sequence being properly expressed by the use
of the future with the conversive vau. The change of tense
is only in the Divine command. The first verb is in the future
Thus a writer in the Athenæum for October 7, 1865, signing himself "A Suffolk
Incumbent," says, "In the first chapter of Genesis, the Seventy have done us a
serious mischief. They have made the Bible square with their own views, and as
their views were ours till lately, we have followed in their wake, and done the same;
and the consequence is that we make the sun and moon begin to serve for days and
years only on the fourth day, when the original Bible changes the tense here to assure
us that this had been so before."
80
GENESIS. AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
jussive, "Let there be light." Then the succeeding verbs,
as commonly takes place in jussive and predictive sentences, are
in the preterite with the vau conversivum preteriti. These verbs,
thus connected, cannot have a pluperfect sense. It would be
absurd to translate "Let there be lights, and let them have
been," etc., the latter verbs denoting time already passed; and
to limit the command to the first clause of v. 14, making the
remainder historical, is plainly rendered impossible by the final
clause of v. 15, "and it was so," apart from all grammatical
considerations.
(v. 19.) The of this verse plainly includes all the living
creatures of the waters, being divided in v. 20 into D, and
the living thing. The former denotes the greater sea-
monsters, the latter those creatures which being smaller have a
creeping motion. The word sheretz is applied also to animals that
go on the belly on land, while in Lev. xi. 10 it is applied, as here,
to creatures that live in the waters. Plainly it is the similarity
in the manner of moving, with a wavy or serpentine action of
the body, that gives rise to the double use of the word, while
the signification which the verb has, to swarm or produce
abundantly, is plainly derived from the abundant offspring of
such creatures, the numerous fry of fishes, or young
of worms,
being, perhaps, the chief ground of this use of the word. It is
employed here for the sake of the alliteration, which cannot be
preserved in a translation without departing from the sense of
either the verb or the noun.¹
As the waters produced these creatures as if by spontaneous
generation, so a like manner of production, which indeed is that
represented in the case of the living things generally down to
man, is manifestly implied in the parallel clause of v. 19,-
"Let the flying thing fly along the face of the expanse of
heaven." This manner of spontaneous production of each
1 Thus the Bishop of Natal, Pentateuch Critically Examined, Pt. v. p. 197,
translates-"Let the waters swarm with swarming things." Swarming is here
incorrect.
THE SIX DAYS' CREATION.
81
creature from its proper element is quite different, at any rate
as regards the fowl, from the manner of the formation of these
out of the ground, together with the other land animals, as
represented in ch. ii.
(v. 26.) The plural form of the words "Let us make man" is
not due to the plural form of Elohim, since a like manner of
expression is adopted in connexion with Jehovah in xi. 7.
Unless the doctrine of the Trinity in Unity had been fully and
distinctly made known, to indicate anything like a plurality
of persons in the Godhead would have been quite inconsistent
with the intent of this passage, as designed to counteract poly-
theistic notions. Indeed, Elohim being treated as one, with a
singular verb, the plural in "Let us make" could only naturally
have arisen from the tendency, when one takes counsel with
himself, to imagine a double personality, as being both speaker
and spoken to. The Christian doctrine of the Trinity naturally
caused Christian writers to look for another cause.
(v. 27.) The absence of the article from the word "image,"
in v. 27, has already been noticed, as indicating a less absolute
likeness to God than the word used definitely might be thought
to express. It is to be observed, however, that in fact the word
in no instance of its occurrence has an article prefixed. This
seems, at the same time, to have been only accidental. In all
cases where the word occurs, it is either naturally used in an
indefinite sense, or it has a pronominal suffix, or there is some
other grammatical reason for its not having the article. The fact,
therefore, that it never happens to have the article prefixed in
any instance of its occurrence, in no way destroys the inference
drawn from the use of the word without it in this place.¹
1 Mr. Rogers, who has done good service to the cause of religion by his "Eclipse
of Faith," in the number of "Good Words" for May 1865, says, in reference to the
recently discovered evidences of the antiquity of man,-"I by no means deny that
there may have been (for aught you and I know), and it may be hereafter proved that
there was, a species of animal amidst the numberless varieties that have appeared,
still more like man, than any of the existing ape tribes; more like him in general
organisation, and with keener instincts and more intelligence than any of those tribes
now possess; and yet not man,-having none of man's higher intellectual, nor a
vestige of his distinctive moral endowments." The respected writer might have
6
82
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
(v. 28-30.) The very wide generality in which all the creatures
are described in this account of the Creation, and the general
absence of everything temporary, local, or in anywise particular,
would render the restriction of mankind to vegetable food,
commonly supposed to be indicated in these verses, and especially
in connexion with the commencement of ch. ix., quite out of
place and character. Such a temporary and merely positive
restriction, so much at variance with the characteristic generality
of description that prevails throughout, has really no existence,
whether these verses be considered by themselves, or compared
with the reference to them in ch. ix. The unlimited grant of
"dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the
air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth,"
clearly implies man's natural right to employ these creatures
for all the uses to which he can possibly turn them in accordance
with his own nature. The principal and most general uses to
which man thus turns the living creatures are for carriage,
clothing and food, the omnivorous nature of man making
animal food as proper to him as any other kind of diet. Indeed
there is no general and important use to which the fish of the
sea can be turned except for food. If, therefore, v. 28 stood
alone, no one could doubt that the grant for food was included
in the universal dominion which it conveys without any re-
striction whatsoever. But if we consider attentively the succeed-
ing verses, we shall perceive that the grant of the fruits of the
earth for food to man, in v. 29, does not stand in opposition to
v. 28, but as an addition to it, the contrast being not between
these two verses, but between v. 29 and v. 30. Besides the
dominion over all living things for all uses, food no less than
perceived that in thus imagining a class of animals exactly suited to meet the
emergency of the case he has to establish, he is supplying the missing link, the
absence of which has been one of the greatest difficulties in the way of the Darwinian
or development theory, to which he is, at the same time, greatly opposed. The
probabilities are that an approximation to man's mental endowments would be
attended with some approach also to his moral nature, faint traces of which have
been thought by some to be perceptible in certain of the lower animals. The views
put forward in this work render us indifferent to all such speculations or possible
discoveries.
THE SIX DAYS' CREATION.
83
-
others, man receives, by virtue of his superior intelligence and
of his ability to till the ground, grain and other fruits capable
of cultivation; while to the inferior animals only the green herb
as naturally produced is given. And as this last verse does not,
of course, exclude the animal food of carnivorous animals, so
neither does the former exclude the animal food of man.
Moreover, throughout this account, the speaking, and naming,
and consulting with himself in words, as attributed to God, can
only be understood of God's will expressed in the actual ex-
istence and nature of the things created. Hence, by parity of
interpretation, and to preserve the unity of character in the
entire piece, we can only understand the words attributed to
God in these verses as the indications of his will expressed in
man's nature, which as truly implies the right to animal food as
to vegetable. So far, therefore, as these verses are considered
by themselves, they give no countenance to this supposed re-
striction.
If, however, there is no ground for supposing the restriction
to have existed in these verses of ch. i., there is as little for
thinking that its previous existence is implied in the grant
of animal food made in ix. 3. In ix. 1 the command to be
fruitful and multiply is repeated in the words of ch. i. Then
the command to subdue and have dominion over all living
creatures is represented by a promise that the fear of man
should prevail over all these creatures, with the additional
clause, "Into your hand they have been given," . This
clause makes the new form fully equivalent to that contained
in i. 28. Then, not as an additional grant, joined as it would
probably have been in such case by a copulative, but as if an
explanatory addition, without a conjunction, God adds, “Every
moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; as green herb
I have given you all." Now, except we were to understand
this latter clause as a reference to i. 29, it would give no colour
to the supposition of a previous restriction. But if we turn to
ch. i., we find that the green herb, y pat was not mentioned
84
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
in v. 29 at all, but in contrast with it was the food granted in
v. 30 to the inferior animals; and so if there is any reference at
all, it must be to this latter grant, which is impossible. The
reference being thus disproved, the supposition of a previous
restriction falls with it. The whole is only a renewal of the
original grant. But there is a special reason for mentioning
the use of animal food here, namely, that the restriction from
its use with "the life, which is the blood," might be subjoined.
The grant of animal food is here expressly mentioned, instead
of being merely implied as before, not with any reference to the
absence of a previous right to use it, but with a view to a
restriction to be newly introduced, rendered necessary, perhaps,
by the prevalence of savage habits in the use of animal food
degrading to human nature, and tending to sanguinary violence
towards men. The prevalent notion, therefore, of the unlawful-
ness of animal food before the deluge, or of the first grant of it
after that event, has no real foundation in the first and ninth
chapters. The seeming countenance which exists for such a
supposition vanishes on a careful consideration of the sacred
text.¹
CH. II. 2. The first verse of this chapter having stated that the
heavens and the earth with their inhabitants were completed,
with manifest reference to the previous description of the six
days' works, and the second verse stating that God rested on
the seventh day from all his works, the intervening clause,
which says that God finished his works which he had made on
the seventh day, has caused great perplexity to interpreters.
The LXX., Samaritan and Syriac present, indeed, a different
1 In support of the original grant of the use of flesh, reference may be made to
Rivetus, Exercitationes in Genesin, 1633, p. 289, and to Heidegger, Rashe Avoth,
Exercit. XV. The latter mentions as authorities in favour of the same view, amongst
the unreformed, Cajetan, F. de S. Victoria, De Soto, and Vatablus; and of the re-
formed, Calvin, Paræus, J. Capellus, and Bochart, with others. The following from
Rivetus may be quoted with advantage:-Cùm plena dominatio ipsi concessa fuisset,
videtur etiam concedendum, potuisse hominem vesci carnibus.-Quòd si quis quærat,
cur jam hoc loco (scil. Gen. ix. 3) illius rei mentio fiat? Respondeo, id factum ideò
fuisse, quia Deus voluit legem sancire de sanguine et suffocato non comedendo, quæ
cùm exceptio fuerit apposita concessioni generali, priùs voluit concessionem illam
repetere, ut meliùs intelligeretur sequens prohibitio.
THE SIX DAYS' CREATION.
85
reading, the sixth, which, however, has probably been produced
by the perplexity occasioned by the Hebrew reading. Keil has
suggested that the resting and blessing the seventh day were
themselves the completing intended, these latter clauses being
explanatory of the former. This is a hard way of under-
standing the words, which may be explained in a simpler
manner by supposing the word finished in this place to
have the same signification as in Daniel ix. 24,—“to finish
the transgression," where the same verb, with a simple
accusative, is used likewise. In this latter case, the finish-
ing consisted not in doing the last act of transgression, but
in causing the transgression to cease. So here too the
finishing of God's work consists in ceasing to do any more.
Nor is this a superfluous addition to . 1. We could easily
v.
understand the works of the six days to have been completed,
and yet God to have proceeded to some new work on the seventh.
But not so; the six days' works, the heavens and earth and all
the host of them being completed, he then, on the seventh day,
finishes all his works by doing no more. The completeness of
the previous enumeration, as embracing all the works of the
material creation, not a cessation ab operando, is what is thus
taught us. And this is further implied, not only in the word
rendered works, which denotes the things done, not the doing of
them, but also by the pluperfect verb subjoined. God finished
all his works which he had made, not was making; they were
finished by his doing no more, and so he rests, and in like
manner bids the Children of Israel rest on the seventh day.
It may be remarked, in conclusion, that this entire passage is
distinguished in a striking manner by a character of iteration.
The repetition of the formula "And God said," of the phrase
"And it was so," as well as of the sentences enumerating the
several days, and the recapitulation of the several works of crea-
tion mentioned in the divine commands in the subsequent state-
ments of the fulfilment of those commands, give the whole piece
the air of the tales and spoken narratives of the East, and
86
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
indeed, of the young and simple everywhere. This character, so
like the ambages of storytellers, may have been adopted with a
view to frequent recitation. It also seems to suggest, and may
have been intended to indicate, that under this form-
obscurum verborum ambage novorum
carmen-
was veiled something different from the literal and historical
acceptation of the narrative, as it presents itself at first to our
notice. We shall have to remark a similar character of itera-
tion in two or three other instances.
T
87
CHAPTER II. 4.-IV.
THE GENERATIONS OF HEAVENS AND EARTH.
I. PARADISE AND THE FALL.
I. IN reviewing the account of creation presented to us
in the document which is prefixed to the First Book of Moses,
and which forms a meet introduction not only to that book but
to the Sacred Canon at large, it was urged that one could not
well conceive that a writer engaged in setting forth a strictly
literal history of the order and progress of creation in its several
steps as they actually took place, could have passed from this
opening portion to the account contained in the second chapter,
as a continuous part of the same narrative. The several points
of disagreement between these two representations of events, the
same in part, were pointed out, and adduced in evidence of the
impossibility of such a supposition, and in proof that both at
any rate were not intended to be taken as literal history. Even
if we supposed the two accounts, distinguished from one another
as they are by these marks of disagreement, to have proceeded
from different authors, and either one or both to have been
adopted by a subsequent writer and attached to his own work
as an integral part of it, the conclusion would be the same as
regards the light in which such a later writer must have viewed
the documents, and the sense in which he intended them to be
understood in thus attaching them to his own work or compila-
tion. Indeed it may be looked on as certain that a writer, who
knew these two accounts, thus inconsistent with one another, to
have proceeded from different authors, would never have dreamed
of connecting them as successive parts of the same continuous
88
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
narrative. And it is to be observed that it is on the authority of
the writer who had thus adopted and compiled these documents,
and not of their original authors, that they would have in such
case been transmitted to us as parts of the sacred canon, and
claiming the same reverence that is due to the other parts of
the work to which they are attached. However these state-
ments originated, they have come to us as part and parcel
of the book of Genesis, and for the present enquiry must
be treated as such. If, then, a writer such as the author of the
latter portion of the book of Genesis must have been-one who,
if he was not Moses, was at any rate, like Moses, oùx ó TUXÒV
avǹp—if such a writer presents successively inconsistent accounts
of the same events in whole or in part, not as different versions
of the same events according to different authorities, but as
alike his own original or adopted representations of the facts,
it is plain that he intended one or both to be taken in a sense
not strictly historical, at least as regards the literal acceptation
of their statements. The same may be said of a mere compiler,
if all were put together by a subsequent author, and of the
community which accepted and transmitted the whole as one
authoritative document. It is only the finding them together
by those who are possessed with the notion that all must be
strictly literal history, that has led to the attempt to reconcile
the statements, or caused men to shut their eyes to the dif-
ferences between them, which could not fail to have been
noticed if the two accounts had been handed down as separate
and unconnected writings. When, however, the incompatability
of the two accounts has once been recognised, while they are
connected together, with the same historical form in kind and
degree, and without any expressed indication of the light in which
either was intended to be viewed, the natural conclusion would
be that both were intended to be understood in the same non-
historical acceptation. The slight indication which the mere
circumstance of its priority might be thought to afford, in favour
of the strictly historical character of the first, is neutralised by
PARADISE AND THE FALL.
89
the proofs already exhibited at length, that that is not to be
taken in its strictly literal and historical acceptation. It is now
proposed to analyse the second document with the view to
ascertain if it affords any internal evidence of the light in
which it should be regarded, whether as an exact and literal
history, or framed on some principle of symbolical repre-
sentation.
The document which is thus to form the principal subject
of the present part of our enquiry extends from the commence-
ment of the fourth verse of the second chapter to the close
of the third. It is severed from the preceding portion by the
regular introductory formula, "These are the generations
of the heavens and the earth, when they were created." It has
already been shewn that this formula cannot be separated from
the sequel and connected with the preceding account as a
recapitulatory conclusion; and it may be added to what was
then said, that it is not the generation of the heavens and the
earth in the active sense of their production, the generating
of them, that is referred to in these words, as might be expected
in the case of such a supposed recapitulation. It is the genera-
tions (in), the products derived from the heavens and
earth when already created, that these words denote, and the
manner of their production which is represented. And this is
done in such a way as to shew that, while both the earthly
material from which the animals and plants were formed, and
the celestial influences employed in their production and con-
C
1 "The words, These are the tholedoth of the heavens and the earth when they
were created,' form the heading to what follows. This would never have been
disputed had not preconceived opinions as to the composition of Genesis obscured the
vision of commentators. The fact that in this passage the true meaning of
precludes the possibility of its being an appendix to what precedes, fully decides the
question. The word in which is only used in the plural, and never occurs
except in the construct state or with suffixes, is a Hiphil noun from bia
and signifies literally the generation or posterity of any one, then the development of
these generations, or of his descendants; in other words, the history of those who are
begotten, or the account of what happened to them and what they performed. In no
instance whatever is it the history of the birth or origin of the person named in the
genitive, but always the account of his family and life.-Keil, Biblical Commentary,
vol. i., pp. 70-1. Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark.
90
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
ducive to their perpetuation, are implied in the designation
of them as the generations of the heavens and the earth, their
production was not the result of a spontaneous or natural gene-
ration, as in the heathen cosmogonies, in which Heaven and
Earth appear as the personal parents of all other creatures, but
was owing to the immediate operation of the Supreme Creator,
himself the maker of the heavens and the earth no less than of
the generations derived from them. "These are the generations
of heavens and earth when they were created, in the day that
the Lord God made earth and heavens." And while the heavens
and the earth are thus set forth as God's creatures, in the pro-
duction of each of their generations, as successively described,
it is the same Lord God that is the operating and immediate
agent in all.
1
While the document now more immediately under con-
sideration is thus marked off from the preceding portion, which
has its own proper recapitulation in the commencing verses
of the second chapter, as this has its proper introductory
formula in the fourth verse of the same chapter, and while it is
distinguished in the entire character of its representations from
1 The Greek and Latin fathers were often misled by their ignorance of Hebrew
into mistakes which they would not otherwise have made. Thus St. Augustine
translates ii. 4, Hic est liber creaturæ cœli et terræ, cùm factus est dies, fecit Deus
cœlum et terram. This is founded on a misreading of the Greek; instead of reading
as the Hebrew requires,—ὅτε ἐγένετο ᾗ ἡμέρᾳ ἐποίησε κ.τ.λ., he read--ὅτε ἐγένετο
ἡ ἡμέρα, ἐποίησε κ.τ.λ. By this mistaken interpretation he confirms the notion,
already supported on other grounds, that the several days of the creative week were
only repetitions of the one first day. Nunc certè firmior fit illa sententia, quâ
intelligitur unum diem fecisse Deum, unde jam illi sex vel septem dies unius hujus
repetitione numerari potuerint.-De Gen. ad Lit. V. i. 1. Such are the traps which
are laid in translations for those who cannot refer to the originals from which they
are derived. It may be remarked here that "earth" and "heavens" in the latter
clause are without the article. In the first clause the article prefixed to these words
is due to the stat. constr. being the article of "generations," and is only, as transferred
to "heavens" and "earth," the sign of the genitive. No argument can therefore be
founded on the absence of the article in the second clause and its presence in the first,
inasmuch as in such a case the words in the genitive may be definite or indefinite
according to circumstances. As there is ample reason in other respects for connecting
the two clauses, the indefiniteness of the words in the latter determines their
indefiniteness in the former also. Yet it will be seen hereafter that some
critics, whose theories require the connection of the first clause with the preceding
passage as its recapitulatory conclusion, rely on the existence of the article in it,
before the words "heavens" and "carth," and its absence from these words in the
second clause.
✓
PARADISE AND THE FALL.
91
it
the account of the creation given in that preceding passage,
is also distinguished from it by a marked peculiarity in the
names of God as employed throughout. In the first God is
exclusively called Elohim, the generic term for Deity, ex-
pressing through its etymology and plural form the concentra-
tion of all powers in the Godhead, and so peculiarly appro-
priate to the first and introductory representation of the
divine operations in the creation of the world; while in this
second account of creation, and throughout the entire document
of which it forms a part, God is described by the combination
of the proper name Jehovah and the generic Elohim in every
instance in which the narrator speaks in his own person, it
being only in the case of interlocutors represented as speak-
ing that the simple Elohim appears. God being represented in
this narrative in a highly anthropomorphic character, and
entering into personal converse with the newly created human
pair, a proper and personal name would seem more appropriate;
while at the outset of a narrative describing the commencement
of things it would also not be inappropriate to signify by such
a combination as is here used, that Jehovah, the personal agent
in the transactions recorded, was Elohim, and that not as one of
many Elohim, but as the one only God, Jehovah Elohim. And
this would be the more natural, if the author was as yet only
proleptically using a newly introduced substitute for the proper
name or names that had previously been in use, as some sup-
pose to be intimated by Exod. vi. 3,-"I appeared unto
Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob by El Shaddai, but
(as to) my name Jehovah I was not known to them." The true
meaning of this passage will be more fully discussed on another
occasion; but if, as is probable, it does not indicate the first
introduction of the name, it plainly does introduce it with new
significance. Its import was then fully manifested, and if the
name was not wholly new, it was revived after having been in
abeyance. This seems clear from the enquiry of Moses, by
what name he should describe to the people the Being who had
•
92
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
appeared to him in the burning bush, and by the reply, "I am
that I am," which, in the first person, lays the foundation for
the name Jehovah in the third person, by which Moses is
presently after bid to announce him to the people. However
this name might have been known to the patriarchs, nothing
is more likely than that it should have gone out of use amongst
the children of Israel during their sojourn in Egypt, where,
as we find by Joshua xxiv. 14, they served strange gods. To
turn the people effectually from these strange gods, and to
guard them against worshipping the false gods of their future
neighbours in Palestine, nothing would more conduce than the
adoption of a special proper name of God not used by the other
nations, and appropriated to the Israelites, as the name of the
one living and true God, and, as the name of their national
God, for those who could not yet rise to the conception of the
divine unity. Whether the name chosen for this end was
wholly new, or, as seems more probable, was revived by Moses,
it was natural that on the first occasion of its use, at the com-
mencement of the writings which were to embody his legislative
and religious systems, he should in some striking manner
identify this God, Jehovah, with the generic Elohim. It
would have been the more needful, if the name had never been
in previous use, but was a newly introduced substitute for the
proper name or names that had previously been in actual use,
as supposed by some to be intimated in Exod. vi. 3. In this
case the exceptions to the use of this combination would not
only be attributable to a religious dislike to put the sacred
name Jehovah into the mouth of the tempter, whose use
of Elohim is followed by Eve in her conversation with him, but
to a sense of dramatic propriety, which on some other occasions
also influenced the writer, and which is likewise very noticeable
in the usage of the book of Job. In that book, Job, whether as
representing the Jewish people, or on historical grounds,
appears as a worshipper of Jehovah. Accordingly, not only
in the words of the narrator, but of Job himself when he
*
PARADISE AND THE FALL.
93
soliloquises in i. 21, this personal name of God is used;
"Jehovah gave and Jehovah hath taken away; blessed be the
name of Jehovah." On the other hand, the friends of Job, who
are non-Israelites, and Job himself in conversing with them,
invariably use a different proper name, Shaddai, by which
name combined with El, and not by that of Jehovah, God is
represented in Exod. vi. 3, as telling Moses he was known to
the patriarchs, and which was doubtless in use amongst other
Shemites also.1
This document, thus distinguished both in substance and form
from that which precedes it, is also marked off from its sequel,
the fourth chapter, which forms a second subdivision of the
section headed "The generations of the heavens and the earth,"
not only by the completeness of its narrative terminating with
the expulsion of man from Paradise, but also by a similar
difference in the use of the names of God. As the first portion
uses only Elohim, and the second, with the exceptions noted,
only Jehovah Elohim, so in the sequel of this, the fourth chapter,
Elohim is dropped and only Jehovah used, except in one instance
to be noticed on a subsequent occasion. The identity of Jehovah
and Elohim having been made clear in the one passage by the
combination, Jehovah by itself might then be used in the other
without occasioning any uncertainty in the minds of readers, who
might not have been sufficiently familiar with this name owing
to its recent introduction or revival.
In thus referring to the peculiarity of usage in regard to the
divine designations by which these commencing passages of the
book of Genesis are characterised, the use made of it is not the
same as that on which have been grounded the speculations of
some writers as to difference of authorship or the interpolation
of difierent parts of this book. The peculiarity is here only relied
1 The non-Israelite Balaam uses the name Jehovah, evidently because it was not
simply as a magician of note that Balak resorted to him, but as one who affected the
worship of Jehovah, and who was therefore thought likely to have had some special
influence in obtaining a curse on the children of Israel from their own national God,
whose power had hitherto been exerted on their behalf.
94
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
on as marking, in connexion with a distinction of subject
matter, the limits of certain portions which, standing separate
and complete in themselves, may be subjected to a manner
of interpretation which may not be applicable to other parts
of the book, especially as these portions do not occur in the
heart of the book, surrounded by passages of plainly historical
character and intended to be taken in their literal acceptation,
but forming the introductory chapters of a history which
imitates the profane histories of other nations by going back
to the origin of all things. As these histories proceed
from myth to more authentic narrative, so the sacred history
proceeds, not from myth, but from allegorical representations
shadowing out the earlier historical facts, in their moral
aspect, under the veil of figurative representations of the deepest
significance. In limiting the application of this manner of
interpretation with any degree of confidence to the two
first passages, which contain within themselves, whether con-
sidered separately or viewed in comparison with one another,
plain indications that they are of the character here represented,
one cannot be charged with throwing doubt on the historical
character of subsequent portions, which seem as plainly
intended to be taken literally, as these, marked off as sepa-
rate documents, seem intended to be taken in an allegorical
acceptation.
II. The first particular that claims to be noticed in this entire
passage is the tentative and suppletory character of the order
and progress of the divine operations as represented therein.
Each succeeding step seems to be taken with the view of supply-
ing some defect found to exist in the preceding work, or of pro-
viding for some want arising out of its creation. Even the mo-
mentous subject of the Fall seems to be introduced in a manner
subsidiary to this way of representing the divine proceedings.
It will be well to exhibit this peculiar manner of representation.
in detail.
The introductory sentence, the poetical structure of which,
PARADISE AND THE FALL.
95
as exhibited in its parallelism and in the inverted repetition
of its ideas, has already been noticed,-
"These are the generations of heavens and earth when they were created,¹
In the day that Jehovah Elohim made earth and heavens,”-
assumes the cosmical creation, and announces the production
of the vegetables and animals derived from thence by creative
power. Before any of these are generated, the new-made earth
is represented as devoid of vegetation :-
"No plant of the field was yet in the earth,
And no herb of the field had yet grown." 2
This deficiency is ascribed to the existence of a twofold want,
namely, of rain and of a man to till the ground :—
"For Jehovah Elohim had not caused it to rain upon the earth,
And there was not a man to till the ground."
Accordingly, the supply of these two wants is immediately pro-
vided. As regards the first,-
"A mist went up from the earth,
And watered the face of the whole ground." 3
Here we have a true and exact account of the production of rain,
which is represented as taking place naturally, while the
operation of God in its production is implied in the statement
of the previous verse that God had not as yet caused it to rain
upon the earth. And then, no sooner is this necessity provided
for, than the other want, to which the absence of vegetation
1 Literally, "In the creating of them." But the preposition thus used "may
be resolved by conjunctions in connexion with prepositions, according as one thinks
of time, place, or circumstance along with the action, so that may be translated by
while, after that, when," etc.-Fuerst, Heb. and Chald. Lexicon. The "generations,"
though succeeding, were potentially comprised in the creation of the heavens and the
earth.
2 The correct rendering of this passage was shown on a former occasion; see p. 24.
The "but" of the English version (dè, LXX.; sed, Vulgate), implies that this mist
was a temporary substitute during the period when there was no rain. This is
quite wrong. The copulative of the original (never to be translated but except in
the clearest cases of an adversative use), and the future form of the verb, implying
succession, plainly show that this was the way in which God proceeded to supply the
deficiency just found to exist. The "earth" of the first clause is cosmical; including
its seas, it sends up its vapour to water the ground. The distinction of earth and
ground is duly observed throughout.
96
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
is attributed, is also supplied, by the formation of a man to till
the ground:-
"Jehovah Elohim formed a man,¹ dust from the ground,
And breathed into his nostrils breath of life;
And the man became a living soul.”
And in this formation of man the same tentative character
which distinguishes the whole is observable. At first the man is
only a lifeless figure, moulded and shaped as it were by a gradual
process, after the manner of a potter or of one who moulds
(") an image of plastic clay. Life is yet wanting, but the
want is immediately supplied. God breathes into his nostrils
breath of life, and the inanimate figure becomes a living person.
The two requisites for the fruitfulness of the ground have been
supplied; the barren earth is watered, and there is now a man
to till the ground.
. Still the ground is as yet unfurnished with the plants needful
for man's sustenance, and the man now formed and animated
with the breath of life needs some better dwelling than the bare
earth unclothed as yet with grass, some spot prepared for his
pains to till it. The want thus felt is according next supplied.
A garden is provided for him :—
“Jehovah Elohim planted a garden in Eden eastward,
And there he put the man whom he had formed.
And from the ground Jehovah Elohim caused to grow every tree that is pleasant to
the sight and good for food;
And the tree of life in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good
and evil.”
see.
Here is provided a dwelling-place furnished with all trees
needful for ornament and for man's sustenance; while, under
the veil of the two mystical trees, a provision for his moral
probation is likewise indicated, as we shall hereafter more fully
And then to secure the fertility of the garden thus amply
furnished, it is not left merely to enjoy the benefit of the mist
1 The article here prefixed to "man," is due to the stat. constr. with the particle
Eth. This usage will be fully discussed hereafter. The instances of it are frequent.
It will suffice for the present to refer to Gen. vi. 17, "a deluge," not "the deluge;'
viii. 7, 8, a raven " and a dove," not "the raven" and "the dove."
((
(6
JA
PARADISE AND THE FALL.
97
already mentioned; a stream is likewise caused to spring up in
Eden, and to flow through the garden, copious enough to form,
at its emergence from the garden, the heads of four of the chief
rivers of the earth :
. וַיַּנְחֵהוּ 1
"And a river went from Eden to water the garden,
And from thence it parted and became four heads.”
And now that the garden is laid out and furnished with
trees and provided with a fertilising stream, the man already
placed there receives it in charge to dress and to keep it, with
permission to use the fruit of all its trees but one. That v. 15
is not a mere repetition of the latter clause of v. 8, describing
the first introduction of man into the garden seems plain, partly
from the construction, the consecutiveness of the successive
steps being indicated by the continued use of the future with
the conversive vau, while the preterite with a pluperfect sense
would properly have been used if this fifteenth verse went back
to the time of v. 8. And it partly follows from the different
import of the verbs used. In v. 8 the verb D denotes
simple location; the verb used in v. 15 is the Hiphil,¹ a
causative form signifying to cause to remain, leave behind, permit
one to do something, or leave one in charge to do it, as when David
left his concubines to keep the house (2 Sam. xvi. 21). So here
God takes the man already in the garden, and leaves him in
charge of it to dress and to keep it, all being now ready to
as
This leaving does not here imply a local departure of God, but simply
the leaving of the care and management of the garden to the man,—a representation
highly indicative of the way in which man is placed in the world, provided with
what is needful for his welfare, but left to turn this provision to his own use, by the
exercise of his own faculties and exertions. In xix. 16, the angels bring Lot and his
family out of Sodom, and leave them (11) outside the city, not "set them"
in the English Version and posuerunt in the Vulgate. The conversation in the sub-
sequent verses plainly took place while they were going along and up to
the time of the departure of the angels. The English Version, "when they had
brought them forth," is quite incorrect. The verb is a suffixed infinitive, and is
properly to be translated" as they were bringing them out." The nyayor of the
LXX. is an imperfect, the preceding víka not being incompatible with this tense, as
in Soph. Ajax, 1144,-hvíк' èv кaký xeiμŵvos exer. The last clause of xix. 16,
mistranslated by the English Version and the Vulgate, is not given at all by the LXX.
The expression" and he took the man," does not of course mean more than guidance
and direction. Cepit, i. flexit. Sic alibi, capit animas sapiens, quod exponunt flectit,
allicit.-Rabbi Salomo, apud Crit. Sacr.
7
98
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
be given into his care. But one restriction is enjoined as regards
the use of its productions. The man has a moral nature, and
he is prohibited to eat the fruit of the mystic tree of knowledge
of good and evil, with the threatened consequence of disobedience
subjoined:
"And Jehovah Elohim took the man,
And left him in the garden of Eden to dress and to keep it.
And Jehovah Elohim enjoined on the man, saying:
Of every tree of the garden thou shalt freely eat,
But of the tree of knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat of it;
For in the day that thou eatest of it thou shalt surely die.”
The new-formed man has wants both physical and moral,
and these wants are thus supplied.
But these are not his only wants. Man is a social being, and
was made with instincts for the continuance of his kind. He
needs a companion and a wife, and the supply of this need also
is resolved on :-
"And Jehovah Elohim said, It is not good that the man should be alone;
I will make him an help meet for him."
And here the tentative manner in which God is represented as
proceeding to accomplish this purpose is very remarkable. He
does not all at once form a woman, as might have been ex-
pected, but first, as in the formation of the man himself, he pro-
duces from the ground various kinds of beasts and birds, and
brings each in succession to the man, to see what he would
call it:
"And Jehovah Elohim formed out of the ground every beast of the field and every
fowl of the air,
And brought them unto the man, to see what he would call them;
And whatsoever the man called every living thing, that was its name.
And the man called names for every beast, and for every fowl of the air, and every
living thing of the field;
But for the man there was not found an help meet for him."
Both the grammatical construction, and the whole design
of this proceeding, as here represented, plainly show that the
formation of the animals was intended to be regarded as sub-
sequent to that of the man. The verb is connected with the
preceding part of the narrative by the vau conversivum futuri,
1
PARADISE AND THE FALL.
99
indicating the consecutiveness of the historical order of the
transaction, and not a mere resumed mention of a previous
event.¹ Hence the LXX. translate thus: kal éπλaσev å DeÒS ETI
ἐκ τῆς γῆς πάντα τὰ θήρια. And this reading of the LXX. has
at least one Hebrew authority in the Ty which the Samaritan
text supplies. It is true, Lightfoot, who is scandalized at the
notion of a creation of other animals subsequent to the formation
of the man, suggests that the Samaritans followed the Alexan-
drian Version on some occasions; and, in support of this sugges-
tion, he adduces a rabbinical assertion that the reading of the
sixth instead of the seventh day, as that on which God finished
his works (Gen. ii. 2) was a change introduced by the LXX., the
Samaritans agreeing with the Greek in that case also. This is a
1 Keil, who maintains the continuous unity of narration in the two first chapters,
is driven to justify the use of the consecutive future here, by a reference to 1 Kings
vii. 13-15, where it is said that Solomon "sent and fetched Hiram out of Tyre, and he
cast the two pillars," etc., although the completion of the temple had been men-
tioned in vi. 38. But first, this instance seems quite irrelevant. After mentioning the
completion of the building of the temple, the historian proceeds to mention the subse-
quent building of Solomon's house and other matters. After these particulars have been
described he reverts to the temple, and mentions, not what had taken place during the
progress of the works previously described, but something that followed the completion
of the building itself. After this was finished, he sent for Hiram to make the two
brazen pillars, the molten sea, and other brass work for the adorning and furnishing
the temple itself as already finished. This seems evident, inasmuch as, though the
temple itself had been finished in the eighth month of the eleventh year, it was not
consecrated till the seventh month, plainly, of a subsequent year, the interval having
doubtless been occupied in preparing these works in brass and other like arrange-
ments. The consecutive future is here therefore quite proper, as denoting the next
particular to that last mentioned in relation to the temple, the intervening matter
being, as regards the grammatical construction, quite parenthetical. But secondly,
even if the case referred to did present an instance of the irregular use of the future
with vau conversive, the case of Gen. ii. 19 would still be quite different. The man
being already created, God resolves to provide an help meet for him; and then with
the converted future we are told that Jehovah Elohim formed every beast and bird,
and brought them to the man, these two verbs having but the one nominative,
Jehovah Elohim. They are thus plainly connected as immediately consecutive steps
in the same transaction, and with such a construction it would be most violent to
suppose the intervening creation of the man whose previous existence is manifestly
implied. This supposition is, on grammatical grounds, quite as untenable as the
notion of some of the old commentators, that this creation of animals was special and
different from the general creation mentioned in chap. i., and is to be rejected as
unreasonable and extravagant.
2 Horæ Hebraicæ, in Act. Apost. xxiii. 8. His remark on the agreement of these
authorities in the present case, and on the meaning which they give to the passage,
or rather the sense in which they understood it, is quite in accordance with the spirit
of his day: Non quæremus hic, quis quem sequatur, querimur potius de audaciâ
utriusque in additione vocis er et 71: quæ persuadere videtur, Deum post creatos
Adamum et Evam, aliquid porro insuperque de novo creasse. Quod mihi quidem adhuc
inauditum; et cui non? This is to determine what a writer did say by what the
100
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
gratuitous and most uncritical assumption. The most natural and
probable inference from the agreement in either case is that both
followed some more ancient Hebrew authority, or formed an in-
dependent judgment on the grounds presented by the passages
themselves.¹ At any rate the design of the proceeding is conclu-
sive against the supposition of a resumed mention of a previous
creation. Plainly this design was to provide an help meet for the
man, and the object of bringing the animals to him, to see what he
would call them, was not merely that they might receive names
from the man, but that he might see if any would suit him as
the needed help meet for his society. The singular and dis-
tributive construction, instead of the collective form, indicates
that this was done successively; as each is formed it is brought
to the man. The name is significant of the nature, and in
giving the name to each he pronounces its unfitness for himself.
We are reminded of the well-known words of Plato,-ős àv
εἰδῇ τὰ ὀνόματα εἴσεται καὶ τὰ πράγματα. It can scarcely be
thought that the writer's design was to give any information
as to the origin of language. In the first chapter, when God
calls the light day and the darkness night, and gives names to
sea and land, this, at a time when, according to the representa-
tion, no articulate-voiced being yet existed, can only mean
that God established the natural distinctions and relations
expressed by these names. Here, too, the giving of names to
the animals, at a time when no other human being existed,
though language has its existence only in the exigencies of our
social condition and the necessity of communication between
critic thinks he ought to have said. Lightfoot seems quite unconscious of the un-
warrantableness of this proceeding, or of his own audacia in making the formation of
Eve to precede the naming of the animals, whereas the narrative plainly makes it con-
sequent on the failure to find an help meet for Adam amongst all the creatures
brought to him, to see what he would call them.
1 Mr. Deutsch, Art. Sam. Pent., Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, says, "It must
be stated that the Sam. and LXX. quite as often disagree with each other, and follow
each the Masor. Text. Also, that the quotations in the N.T. from the LXX.,
where they coincide with the Sam. against the Hebr. Text, are so small in
number and of so unimportant a nature that they cannot be adduced as any argument
whatsoever."
2 The English Version has substituted the plural "them," for the singular pronoun
of the original in the second clause of v. 19.
-
PARADISE AND THE FALL.
101
human beings, and then the limitation of this process of nam-
ing to the animal creatures, taken in connexion with the occasion
as represented by the writer, seem plainly only meant to
indicate man's natural perception of the unfitness of any of
these inferior creatures to be his helpmate. The naming
according to the conceptions of a Hebrew writer, no less than
of Plato's Cratylus, would afford a lively representation of this.
But, even viewed as an arbitrary sign, the name stands for the
thing signified, and sums in itself the ideas comprehended in
the conception of its nature. And it is evidently with this in
view that the naming is here described. The result of the
whole proceeding is, that for the man there was not found
an help meet for him. Accordingly, when the real help
meet for him is afterwards brought, he in like manner
immediately gives her a name also-a name significant of her
nature and origin. The tentative character of the represen-
tation is in this particular specially observable. When a mate
is to be provided for the man, the inferior animals are first
tried one by one as they are formed, and are found unfitted for
the purpose. The moral of such a representation may be found
by a reference to the abominations practised by the nations
with whom the children of Israel were in contact, and which
the Hebrew Lawgiver found it needful to prohibit in the book
of Leviticus. It was doubtless with a view to these abomi-
nations, that it stands as an introduction to the primitive in-
stitution of marriage.
The formation of all these creatures having failed in pro-
viding a suitable mate for the man, a different plan is then
adopted; and, in accordance with the general character of the
entire passage, the successive steps of a gradual process are here
also presented-the deep sleep into which the man is cast, the
extraction of the rib, the closing up of the flesh again, and the
transformation of the rib into a woman by a process which is
itself also gradual, and in which God builds her up of the
a process יִבֶּן אֶת־הַצְלָע לְאִשָּׁא ,material supplied by the rib
102
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
issuing in the production of one whom he recognises at once
as the needed help, and with whom he is henceforth to be one
flesh, as partaker of his own nature, unlike the creatures of a
different nature already brought to him and rejected. Hence he
says, "This is now," (DVD) this time,¹ as distinguished from
the previous turns, "bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh;"
and he names her accordingly.
"And Jehovah Elohim caused a sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept.
And he took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh instead thereof.
And Jehovah Elohim builded the rib, which he took from the man, into a woman,
And he brought her to the man.
And the man said, This is, this turn, bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh;
This shall be called woman, for out of man was this taken.
Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother,
And cleave to his wife, and they shall be one flesh."
These latter words are plainly ascribed to the man, standing
as they do in grammatical connexion with his previous words;
while it would be out of character with the whole passage for
the writer to introduce a general remark or reflection of his
own, nothing but what directly conduces to the narrative itself
being elsewhere spoken by the writer in his own person.
The man and the new-made woman have now but one
remaining want, and that is not yet a want, though soon to
become one.
And this circumstance is made the climax of
the narrative, the very perfection of their condition being
that this want was not felt. Up to this all is progress towards
perfection; step after step has been taken, want after want
supplied, till none remains but one, which they are too pure and
innocent to feel to be a want;
"And the two of them were naked, the man and his wife,
And they were not ashamed."
But as up to this all was progress, so from this out in
the sequel of the narrative there is a corresponding retro-
gression and decline. What is specially remarkable in this is
1 Or, not taking the word adverbially, we might render exactly, "This is the time
(or turn), bone of my bones," etc. Or even more literally, "This is the stroke,”—the
successful hit, as one might say in a more familiar way of speaking.
PARADISE AND THE FALL.
103
that, while the way for the statement of the fall is prepared by
the representation of innocence as evinced in the freedom from
shame notwithstanding the want of clothing, so, on the other
hand, according to the artificial peculiarity of the narrative,
even this momentous subject of the fall seems introduced as if
merely to explain how the want of clothing, at first not felt to
be a want, came to be the occasion of shame, and so was felt to be
a want, the supply of which, in accordance with the suppletory
character of the narrative, is at once provided. The break
occasioned by the division of the chapters renders this the less
apparent, as does also the "now" with which, in the English
Version, the third chapter is made to commence, as if entering
on a new history. But this "now" only represents the same
copulative which connects all the previous parts of the
narrative. If "and" be substituted for "now," and the third
chapter be read in connexion with the concluding verse of the
second, it will be seen that the issue of the temptation and fall
in v. 7, is set in manifest contrast with those concluding
words of the second chapter,-
"And the eyes of them both were opened,
And they knew that they were naked."
The want has come to be felt, by reason of what has taken place
they attempt to supply the want for themselves, but insuffi-
ciently; and, in the consciousness of this, they try to hide them-
selves when they hear the voice of the Lord God. When
challenged by the Almighty, they allege the shame of their
nakedness as the cause of their effort to hide themselves. The
sense of shame becomes the proof of guilt; the sentence of con-
demnation is pronounced; another want arising from trans-
gression is supplied in the promise of a triumph over the
tempter by the seed of the woman; and then God himself
supplies the need of clothing more effectually than they had
been able to provide it for themselves. From the unconscious
nakedness of innocence, they have thus receded through the
fall to the sense of shame and the need of clothing. From the
-
104
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
abode of their innocence they are driven forth, its delights are
lost, the approach to the tree of life is hindered by the flaming
sword of the Cherubim, and they are brought back to the point
from which the formation of man was represented to have arisen.
There was not at the first a man to till the ground, and the
man was formed to supply this want; now they are sent forth
to till the ground from whence they were taken. This manner
of introducing the account of the temptation and fall, as if to
explain how the sense of shame came to be felt, and clothing
to be required and provided, is highly artificial; but there is no
trifling in it. The sense of shame consequent on sin is of the
deepest moral significance; and the provision of clothing by
God, in place of the ineffectual efforts of the transgressors them-
selves to hide the shame of their bodily nakedness, is no less
deep in its mystical import.
III. When the representation of the order and progress
of creation contained in these two chapters, as now surveyed,
is compared with the representation of the divine operations as
set forth in the first, one cannot fail to be struck by the re-
markable difference. It is not merely that the order in which
the works succeed one another is different; the gradual and
tentative mode of proceeding, whereby wants are supplied and
deficiencies provided for as they are found to arise, is wholly
diverse in character. In the first, the operations are absolute
and complete; the word is spoken and the work is done, in
sublime conformity with the highest and grandest conception
of the Godhead. In the second account the Creator appears,
as regards the manner of his operations, in fashion as a man,
and, like a human worker, plants and moulds and builds his
materials into the intended form. This divine anthropism, as a
general characteristic, pervades the entire of the second account
of the creation, and is carried on through the history of the fall
to the close of the document. In order more fully to estimate
its character in this respect, it will be well to observe in detail
the several instances of anthropomorphic representation which
PARADISE AND THE FALL.
105
are to be noticed, in addition to the general tentative and sup-
pletory manner of proceeding which has been just exhibited.
The moulding process of man's formation of the dust of the
ground at once suggests a human workman moulding an image
figured of plastic clay. And then, when this image is complete,
he proceeds as one would endeavour to restore breath to a
person half drowned, by breathing into the nostrils the breath
of life. One can imagine a human artist thus vainly striving
to animate the lifeless image he has formed; and thus it is,
but not in vain, that the divine artificer imparts life to his
workmanship, and man becomes a living soul.
Then, when the garden of Eden is to be provided, it is not by
the command, "Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yield-
ing seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind; and it
was so." Now, after the manner of a gardener, God first plants
the garden generally, and then having thus planted it, causes
to grow from the ground all trees useful for ornament or
fruit.
The other animals, like the man, are moulded of the dust
or clay. When the woman is to be formed, the man is cast
into a deep sleep as if to render him insensible to a painful
operation, the rib is extracted and the wound closed up, all after
the manner in which a surgeon would perform some nice opera-
tion of his art. And the extracted rib is built into a woman;
she does not start at once into existence, in all the perfection
of her beauty, but is formed by a gradual process of handy-
work, as before in the case of the man.
Then we have the especially human representation of the
Lord God walking in the garden, not in the heat of noontide,
but in the cool or breeze of the day. And as one thus walk-
ing in the cool of the day might, in his musing and medi-
tation, speak to himself aloud, so the voice of God is heard
as he walks in the garden. In human fashion also he con-
verses with the man and the woman, and instead of seem-
ing to have known their transgression by divine omni-
106
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
science, he infers it from their profession of shame at being
naked, as one man would infer the guilt of another from
the indications of a guilty conscience. And as they have now
come to feel the shame of nakedness, he himself makes them
coats of skin, not simply a rude and unshaped covering, but
regular coats or tunics, as the word used denotes.¹
But perhaps the most remarkable instance of anthropism in
the entire narrative, is the seeming jealousy manifested at
man's acquirement of the knowledge of good and evil by the
eating of the forbidden fruit. The tempter had assigned, as the
motive of the prohibition, the fear on God's part that this know-
ledge would be acquired, and that the privilege of the deity
would thus be invaded:
"For Elohim knoweth that in the day of your eating thereof, also your eyes shall be
opened,
And ye shall become as Elohim, knowing good and evil."
Here the knowledge of good and evil is represented as a privilege
from which God would exclude them, and which He jealously
guards and reserves to himself. On the part of the tempter this
suggestion is intelligible enough. That which God withholds
from men is always imagined to be better than what he grants
or permits; and men are always ready to murmur, as if God
enviously grudged them advantages which they would fain
enjoy. We are all conscious enough of some such feeling in
our times of temptation, and it is quite natural that it should
appear as a suggestion of the tempter on the occasion of
man's first temptation. But what is very remarkable is that
at the close, and after the guilty knowledge has been acquired,
God himself is represented as expressing such a feeling of
jealousy and, under its influence, taking steps to prevent
1
nin, from whence the Greeks derived their xírwv, or tunic. The garment
derived its name from cotton, the material of which it was commonly made. Tunic
is only an anagrammatical congener of xírwv, if not directly derived from it. This
transposition of letters or syllables, especially in the adoption of foreign words, is very
common. The ear has imperfectly retained the sound of the original, or the organs
of speech more readily utter the transposed letters, than if the original position was
retained. This is illustrated daily in the mis-pronunciation of children learning to
speak, and takes place similarly in the naturalisation of foreign words.
PARADISE AND THE FALL.
107
a still nearer approach to the condition of Godhead by the
further acquisition of immortality. It was too much that they
had gained the knowledge of good and evil which God had
reserved to himself, and now steps must be taken lest they
become immortal also, and so still more like unto God than
they had already become :-
"And Jehovah Elohim said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good
and evil;
And now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and
live for ever."
He had already become like God by partaking of the tree
of knowledge; he must not become more like him by par-
taking of the tree of life also. In the ancient systems of my-
thology, which were essentially anthropomorphic, this envious
feeling in regard to human advantages was freely and naturally
attributed to their gods. And so in Herodot. Pol. 46, Arta-
banus referring to the ills of life, which make death sometimes
welcome, says,——ὁ δὲ θεὸς, γλυκὺν γεύσας τὸν αἰῶνα, φθονερὸς ἐν
αὐτῷ εὑρίσκεται ἐών. Such a jealousy as this, wholly unlike
that which is truly ascribed to God in respect to the degraded
conceptions which men formed of the Divine Being, likening
Him to birds and four footed beasts and creeping things, is
quite alien to the Scriptural notion of God in general; and it
must be regarded here as an unreal anthropomorphism, mysti-
cally veiling, however, an important truth. Essentially different
must be God's knowledge of the distinctions of right and wrong,
whether in their abstract nature, or as exemplified in human
conduct, from the conscious and guilty knowledge which man
acquired by transgression,-a knowledge which, in truth, made
him far more unlike to God than the childlike ignorance of
man's innocent state. Yet it is of the knowledge of good and
evil, acquired by transgression, that God is represented as
saying, "The man is become as one of us, to know good and
evil." Unreal, however, as these words must be, if considered
with reference to any sentiment existing in the mind of God, or
108
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
actually uttered by him, they yet do express God's disappro-
bation of the craving to taste forbidden joys, the pride that
dares to challenge the rectitude of the moral government of the
world, the presumption that would intrude into mysteries
which God has placed beyond the grasp of our intellect, and
would bring down God to the measure of our understanding,
as we cannot mount up to the heights of the divine intelligence,
or comprehend the Infinite. And as this disapprobation is
represented as a jealousy of man's invading the privileges of
God in the acquirement of the knowledge of good and evil,
so the punishment of the transgression, whereby this knowledge
was acquired, is in like manner represented by a jealous care
lest he should still further invade the divine privileges by ac-
quiring immortality. Such a representation would present a
real difficulty, if we were obliged to understand all this in
its strict literal import, implying, as it would, very unworthy
conceptions of God on the part of the writer. The difficulty
vanishes, however, when it is perceived that this is only an
instance of a prevailing anthropism which characterises the
whole narrative. And this anthropism only forms one out
of many indications of a symbolical and mystical character
pervading the entire document.
IV. The instance of a purely mystical representation just
considered leads to the observation, through the whole passage,
of the occurrence of like particulars, which plainly cannot be
accepted, in their strict literal sense, as indicating historical
events in the actual mode of their occurrence. And while the
whole wears exactly the same historical aspect, if it shall
appear
that a large proportion of the particulars narrated—undis-
cernible from the remainder by any distinction in the manner
in which they are told-must be taken in a mystical accepta-
tion, the conclusion is inevitable, that all must be regarded
rather as a parabolical representation of important facts and
principles, than as in any part a literal history of facts in the
exact order and manner of their occurrence, which it is plainly
PARADISE AND THE FALL.
109
shown it cannot be in some. And accordingly, Hengstenberg,
who adopts however the most literal and realistic interpretation,
having mentioned the supposition of a symbolical serpent, well
remarks, that one who adopts this view, must, to be at all con-
sistent, also admit the allegorical character of the entire passage.
For, in a connected passage like this, unity of interpretation
must prevail; and it is not allowable to follow at one moment
the allegorical or symbolical, and at another the proper and
literal manner of explanation.¹ Only it is to be observed that
this unity of character is merely necessary in reference to the
several successive particulars and the manner of their represen-
tation, which should be either all symbolical or all literal. The
symbolical manner of representation may prevail throughout as
regards these several particulars, and yet the whole, as a whole,
may still be regarded as not a mere allegory, much less an un-
real tale or fable. As a whole it may be not a mere apologue
illustrating some true principles, but a true history setting
forth under an allegorical form undoubted facts. The creation
of man, his primeval innocence, the fall and its consequences,
the promise of deliverance from those consequences, may be all
undoubted historical facts, though in the manner in which these
facts are presented to the view in their several details, and in
regard to many important truths and principles involved in
these facts, the allegorical and symbolical method of represen-
tation may have been adopted. And if it shall appear certain
that in regard to some particulars this method has been adopted,
then it seems necessary to understand the other particulars in
like manner also.
As clear and unquestionable instances of mystical representa-
tion may be specified the tree of life and the tree of knowledge
of good and evil planted in the midst of the garden of Eden.
The natural impression produced by the description of these
trees, it may be said without hesitation, would be that they
were meant to be understood symbolically; and this impression
¹ See Christologie, Th. 1, Abth. i. p. 26. Ed. 1829.
110
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
a little consideration will confirm. And here it is first to be
observed that man at his creation, even by the very evidence
which this document supplies, was not naturally immortal in his
bodily condition. The fact that he was to be sustained and pre-
served in life by bodily nourishment and the use of food shows
this sufficiently. That such was the way in which his life was
to be preserved is clear not only from the grant to man at his
first creation of every herb bearing seed, and every tree bearing
fruit, to be for food, as expressed in Gen. i. 29, but also from the
planting of the garden, which was to be the abode of man's inno-
cence, with every tree, not only pleasant to the sight, but also
good for food, and the permission to use all but the fruit of one
tree. If man's life was to be sustained and preserved by a con-
tingent condition, such as the use of food, it is plain that he was
not naturally immortal. Nor can it be supposed that the many
conceivable accidents by which the vital organization might
have been destroyed would not have destroyed life itself at the
same time. Moreover, the apprehension expressed at the close,—
"Lest he put forth his hand, and take of the tree of life, and eat,
and live for ever,"-seems to imply his natural mortality. It is
as if, while he was naturally mortal, the tree of life was the means
of preserving him from death, and exclusion from it became the
means of carrying into effect the threatened punishment of death
on account of his disobedience. Even the very sentence of
mortality itself rather indicates the accomplishment of a natural
tendency of man's original constitution, than any change from
an immortal to a mortal nature :-" Dust thou art, and unto dust
thou shalt return." And this seems evidently to have been the
view of St. Paul in 1 Cor. xv. 45–50, where the first Adam, as
made a living soul (the condition of his creation prior to the
fall), is treated as being of the earth earthy, having the corrup-
tible nature of flesh and blood, as opposed to the heavenly and
immortal.¹ Any bodily immortality, therefore, that unfallen
1 This passage is quoted by St. Augustine, to show that Adam in his state of
innocence had the animal as opposed to the spiritual body.-De Gen. ad Lit. VI.,
xix. 30.
PARADISE AND THE FALL.
111
man would have enjoyed, would have been the result of a
special providential arrangement, and the reward of his con-
tinued obedience.¹ It was remarked by Bishop Bull—“ State
of Man before the Fall"—that the promise of such a reward on
the condition of obedience is implied in the threatening of death
in case of disobedience. He also observes that "the prohibition
given to Adam concerning the not eating of the tree of know-
ledge is ushered in (which very few interpreters take any exact
notice of) with this express donation or grant of God that he
might freely eat of all the rest of the trees of Paradise, the tree
of life not excepted." And as, according to the representation
of the matter made in iii. 22, the use of the tree of life would
have secured immortality, and the transgression was, in pur-
suance of the sentence of mortality, followed by exclusion from
resort to it, the inference clearly follows that immortality was
conditional on obedience, as death was to be consequent on
transgression; and that while the latter, in the mere exclusion
from the tree, would take place naturally, the tree of life was a
provision for the former.2 Now, however one might imagine a
tree the fruit of which was of such wholesome qualities as that
the use of it should tend to the prolongation of life, one whose
fruit should naturally produce immortality is what no one
would suppose to be here intended. Yet, as far as the literal
import of the words extends, iii. 22 plainly implies that eternal
1 Cùm Adami immortalitas in statu suo primigenio ex principiis naturæ internis
nequaquam dependerit, sed ex solo et liberrimo Dei beneplacito, semotâ per peccatum
causâ illâ externâ conservante, necesse erat, ut Adamus certo quodam tempore more-
retur, atque vi fœdoris è statu mortis naturalis ad judicium traheretur. Johannis
Oweni coλoyoúμeva, Oxon., 1661, p. 19. St. Augustine remarks that St. Paul does
not say (Rom. viii. 10), "The body is mortal because of sin," but "dead," inasmuch
as it was death, not mortality, that was caused by the Fall. Denique non ait
Apostolus, corpus quidem mortale propter peccatum; sed corpus mortuum propter
peccatum. Illud quippe ante peccatum et mortale secundùm aliam, et immortale
secundùm aliam caussam dici poterat: id est mortale, quia poterat mori, immortale
quia poterat non mori.-De Gen. ad Lit., VI., IIV. 36.
2 Thus St. Augustine proceeds after the words last quoted: Aliud est enim non
posse mori, sicut quasdam naturas immortales creavit Deus: aliud est autem posse
non mori, secundùm quem modum primus creatus est homo immortalis; quod ei
præstabatur de ligno vitæ, non de constitutione naturæ à quo ligno separatus est
cùm peccasset, ut posset mori, qui nisi peccasset posset non morì. Mortalis ergo erat
conditione corporis animalis, immortalis autem beneficio conditoris.
112
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
life itself would be the consequence of eating, and that only
once, of the tree of life; for this is the evident meaning of the
apprehension expressed," Lest he put forth his hand, and take
of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever;"-words that denote
not a constant and repeated resort to a wholesome and in-
vigorating food, but the participation, once for all, of a food
which should supersede the necessity of all other means of
sustaining life, prevent all fatal accidents, all mortal disease,
all effects of age or excess, and that too after the fall had let
loose the reins of passion. It seems foolish thus to insist on the
absurdity of imagining such a tree as could by the physical
powers of its fruit produce such a result. Neither will this con-
*cluding passage of the third chapter allow of the supposition
of some tree, which by an arbitrary appointment was invested
with a sort of sacramental virtue in imparting the reward
of eternal life,-unless on the further supposition that that
sacramental virtue should be efficacious even in the failure
of the very condition of the grace it was intended to confer.
The very supposition of a sacramental virtue in the imparting
the rewards of obedience would imply its failure in the absence
of the obedience on which the rewards were made conditional;
and in such case the Cherubim with flaming swords to guard
the way of the tree of life would have been wholly unnecessary.¹
But while the document itself thus supplies the means
of disproving the realistic and literal meaning of the tree of
life, the New Testament supplies a guide to its true meaning.
As here, at the commencement of the Sacred Writings, the tree
of life is planted in the earthly paradise, so at the close of the
sacred canon it is found again in the heavenly:-"To him that
overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life that is in the
1 "And lest we should make a wrong inference from what we read, that immortal
life was man's natural claim from the time of his creation; and not a free gift
bestowed upon him on his entrance into Paradise; the historian tells us of the means
employed to exclude him from the tree of life, which conferred immortality on the
The ideas which this language conveys are indeed allegorical; but they inform
us of this, and of nothing but this, that immortal life was a thing extraneous to our
nature; and not put into our paste or composition, when first fashioned by the forming
hand of the Creator."-Warburton, Divine Legation, B. vii. ch. i., §. 1.
eater.
PARADISE AND THE FALL.
113
midst of the paradise of God," Apoc. ii. 7; "In the midst
of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there a
tree of life which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her
fruit every month, and the leaves of the tree were for the heal-
ing of the nations," Apoc. xxii. 2. And the right to this tree
of life is also in this chapter, v. 14, made conditional on obedi-
ence, as in Eden :-"Blessed are they that do his commandments,
that they may have right to the tree of life." Now, while this
Apocalyptic tree of life is plainly the conterpart of that in
Genesis, its allegorical nature cannot be disputed. Its twelve
fruits correspond to the twelve foundations of the city on which
are the names of the twelve Apostles, and it grows beside the
river of life that proceedeth out of the throne of God and of the
Lamb. Here is plainly a mystical representation of the pro-
vision made in the Gospel, as taught by the Apostles, for impart-
ing eternal life. And, guided by this manifest allusion to the
tree of life in Genesis, we should in like manner regard this as
mystically representing the promise of eternal life conditional
on man's obedience in Paradise. And then the precaution
against his eating of its fruit after his transgression denotes
the exclusion from participation in that reward consequent on
disobedience.
But if the tree of life must thus be regarded as a mystical
and not a real tree, the tree of knowledge of good and evil,
coupled with it, must also be viewed in the same light. Com-
mon sense forbids the supposition of a tree whose fruit could
have the physical property of opening the eyes to make one
wise, and imparting the knowledge of good and evil by any
direct operation. The only sense in which it can be imagined
that the partaking of the forbidden fruit, as the fruit of a tree,
or any material product, could have the effect ascribed to it,
is that the use of it having been forbidden, the eating of it was
a transgression, and as such produced the moral effects which
must have followed the first transgression in a being constituted
as man is. Before transgression there was no conscious know-
8
114
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
1
ledge of evil as distinguished from good. The evil act might
have been contemplated as a possible occurrence, and as opposed
to the command or the contrary duty. But that special feeling
which would arise, not from conscience forbidding the act as yet.
untried, but from conscience condemning an offence committed,
the consciousness of having done wrong, the loss of the sense
of innocence, the experience and practical knowledge of evil as
opposed to good, would be the natural consequence of any
transgression, and might have followed the violation of an
arbitrary prohibition of the fruit of any particular tree; and
this might, no doubt, be rightly described, with reference to
these consequences, as the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
Warburton, in his Divine Legation, supposes that such an
arbitrary prohibition was superadded to man's natural obliga-
tions, as the condition of immortality, in order to show that the
gift of this did not follow as a matter of right on man's obedi-
ence to the law of nature. But the law of nature would enforce
obedience to a positive or arbitrary commandment once given;
while, on the other hand, in the absence of experience and of
the knowledge of good and evil acquired by transgression, very
many duties, now known to be moral, must have borne the
semblance of positive precepts, if specially enjoined. Much also
of man's moral duty being only arrived at, as such, by a process
of reasoning of which only a few are capable, this must, to the
bulk of mankind, at all times be presented in the form and
character of positive precepts. Hence the most that the addition
of a new positive command, with its accompanying threat, would
effect, would be to bring it within the category of men's other
duties and subject them to punishment in case of disobedience to it.
At any rate, as there is abundant reason for regarding the tree
of life as purely allegorical, there seems no reason for resorting
to Warburton's ingenious mode of accounting for a mere arbi-
trary command superadded to man's natural obligations as
regards the tree of knowledge; and all the moral consequences
¹ Book vii., ch. i. 2.
PARADISE AND THE FALL.
115
*
of the transgression, which must be regarded as the ground
of the designation of the tree as the tree of knowledge of good
and evil, would follow in a more full and decided manner from
the violation of a moral, than of a mere positive and arbitrary
command. More especially might the sense of shame, like that
on account of bodily nakedness, be expected to follow the con-
sciousness of impurity that would arise from a transgression
which would more immediately loosen the control of conscience
over the animal passions and appetites of our nature, than the
eating a fruit tempting to the eye, but, mainly according to
the representation of the letter, partaken of from a desire to gain
forbidden knowledge. While therefore the tree of life and its
permitted use must be understood to denote the promise of
eternal life conditional on man's obedience, and the tree of know-
ledge must be taken in a like sort of mystical and allegorical
sense, this will denote the undue and unlawful indulgence of
man's propensions and impulses in general, both mental and
bodily, entailing the loss of the gift of eternal life, and the moral
consequences attributed to the use of the forbidden fruit-the
conscious and guilty knowledge of evil experienced and good
forsaken and lost, and the shame of conscious nakedness arising
from inward feelings of conscious impurity.'
It may perhaps be thought that St. Paul's reference to "the similitude of Adam's
transgression," in Rom. v. 14, would enable us to form some notion as to that Apostles'
conception of the nature of this transgression. Much light does not appear to be
thrown on the subject by that reference. The design of the Apostle was to show
that as sin and death came by one, namely Adam, so righteousness and life come by
one, namely Christ. In order to make this resemblance more evident, he shows that
in the interval between Adam and Moses some had undergone death, who had not
sinned in such a way as would have brought death on themselves if it had not come
by Adam. For though sin was in the world, it would not have been visited with a
penalty which was not denounced by any specific law. Death was denounced against
the offence of Adam; it was not denounced by any specific law against the many sins
committed afterwards, which sins were not therefore visited with this penalty. Yet men
died notwithstanding, and so must have died by reason of the sentence pronounced
on Adam. The word exλoyeîraι is not used here to signify imputation in the sense
of attributing to a person a righteous or sinful act or character; it is rather employed
in its stricter and more literal sense of charging something against one for the exaction
of payment. It is thus this verb is used in the other instance of its occurrence, in
Philem. 18. 19 (TOûTo éµol eλλóyei,—¿yw ȧnorlow), where it denotes charging in respect
of payment. If there is no law denouncing some particular penalty, a sin, though sinful
in the person doing it, is not charged against him for the exacting of that particular
penalty. The point in which the sins committed from Adam to Moses differed from
116
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
V. But if these two trees are to be regarded as not real, but
mystical and allegorical trees, there is another particular con-
nected with the garden of Eden, which there is also a clear
necessity of understanding in a like mystical acceptation,
namely, the river which went out of Eden to water the garden,
and after passing through it divided into four heads. These
are thus described, as rivers well-known to the writer and his
readers:
"The name of the first is Phison,
That is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah,
Where there is gold, and the gold of that land is good;
There is bdellium and the onyx stone;
And the name of the second river is Gihon,
That is it which compasseth the whole land of Cush;
And the name of the third river is Hiddekel,
That is it which goeth to the east of Assyria;
And the fourth river, that is Euphrates."
Now here, at any rate, are the two great rivers of Mesopo-
tamia, Hiddekel, mentioned also in the book of Daniel, being
without doubt the Tigris. Its name has survived in the
Aramaic Diglath, mentioned by Josephus, and Diglito, by
Pliny (Nat. Hist. vi. 28), and in the modern Digil, by which
name the Tigris is now designated. The name Gihon has by
some been supposed to denote the Oxus, now known by the
appellation Jihoun. There is reason, however, to believe that
the Nile has been known by this name amongst the Abyssinians
in recent times. Josephus says in reference to this river of
Paradise, Γεὼν δὲ αὐτῆς Αἰγύπτου ῥέει, adding that the Greeks
called it Nilus, as if it was known by the other name in Egypt,
or amongst the Jews, in his time. But there is a more ancient
authority, and one not likely to be mistaken in this matter,
namely, the Alexandrian version. That the LXX., living in
the similitude of Adam's transgression was the absence of any law denouncing against
them the specific penalty of death, as in the case of Adam's transgression. But this
throws no light on the nature of the offence by which that penalty was incurred. It
was not the nature of the offence, but the manner in which its consequences passed
to others, that constituted the point of similitude, and made Adam to be Túros ToÛ
μéλλOVTOS. See on the subject of this note, "St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans,
with Notes," by Dr. Vaughan.
PARADISE AND THE FALI.
117
Egypt, should have adopted this name as the representative
of a Hebrew word, which is plainly intended to designate the
Nile, is a sufficient proof that this river was known by the
name of Gihon in their time. In Jeremiah ii. 18 we read,
"What hast thou to do in the way of Egypt to drink the
waters of Sihor?" This name, Sihor, plainly used to denote
the Nile, is rendered by the LXX. Teŵv, in which form they
give this name in Gen. ii. 13 also. Fuerst, in his Heb. and
Chald. Lexicon, says, "According to Josephus (Ant. I., i. 3),
Kimchi, and others, and as it appears also from the LXX.,
Jer. 2, 18, Ben-Sira 24, 37, it means the Nile, which flows
through all the southern lands () that fall under the narra-
tor's point of view. Hence the historian must have thought
of the origin of the Nile in Asia, which is possible from the
accounts in Strabo, Arrian and Pausanias." The supposition,
however, of Alexander when he saw crocodiles in the Hydaspes,
and Egyptian beans in the Acesines, flowing into the Indus,
that he had arrived at the sources of the Nile, was soon per-
ceived to have been a mistake, as great rivers and the ocean
itself intervened. And the notion mentioned by Pausanias,2
that the Euphrates, disappearing in a marsh, rises again as the
Nile, would not satisfy the description of the rivers of Paradise,
the four of which are parted from one head. Instead of sup-
posing the writer of Gen. ii. to have imagined the Nile to have
its origin in Asia, it is more reasonable to regard the whole
description as a mystical representation. At any rate, it is
much more probable that the Nile was here intended than the
Oxus. A people settled in Egypt for some centuries would
scarcely have understood by the land of Cush any other
country than the Cush adjacent to the Red Sea. Certainly any
country such as Chusistan, near the Oxus, was not likely to be
known to the Israelites in any of the earlier periods of their
history. This name Gihon, in both its Hebrew and Arabic
forms, signifies radically a stream or river, and would naturally
1 Strabo, Geog. lxv., p. 696. Ed. Casaub. 2 Lib. II. ch. v. p. 122. Ed. Kuhn.
118
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
be applied to the principal river of any particular country.
A person brought up in Egypt would no doubt follow the
Egyptian custom in thus speaking of the Nile, while yet we
might find the same name in other countries also applied by
their Shemitic inhabitants to other rivers. Gihon, or Geon,
being a Shemitic word, if not naturalized in Egypt in the time
of the LXX., must have been adopted by them to represent the
native word used in Egypt, as more intelligible to their readers
than the Sihor of Jeremiah.
What was intended by Phison, the remaining river, seems
more doubtful. The land of Chavilah or Havilah, the gold
of which is good, and where is bdellium and the onyx stone,
is probably India. The name may still survive in Cabul, and
Josephus says that Phison was the Ganges.
But whatever we may guess as to these rivers, Phison and
Gihon, it is quite certain that no four rivers, of which Euphrates
and Tigris are two, spring from one stream that divides into four.
The Euphrates and Tigris now coalesce near the Persian Gulf,
and some have imagined a subsequent division before entering
the sea.
But it is plain such a supposition does not accord with
the description of the river of Paradise, which passed singly
through the garden, and afterwards divided into four, evidently
in its downward course. For it is well remarked by Mr.
Wright, (Art. Eden, in Smith's Dictionary of the Bible), that
the verb NY is only used of the course of a river from its source
downwards. If the confluent part of the Euphrates and
Tigris was the river of Eden, then this verb would not only
be applied to the progress of the supposed separate streams
into which the confluent river was parted before entering the
sea, but would also imply a course in the opposite direction
before the confluence, which would be contrary to fact. Besides,
the coalescing of the Euphrates and Tigris seems to have
been an occurrence of comparatively recent date, and therefore
not to be referred to the early period contemplated in the
narrative now under consideration. Pliny, (Nat. Hist., vi. 27),
T T
PARADISE AND THE FALL.
119
says
it was occasioned by the long continued practice of irriga-
tion, which caused the choking of the proper outlet of the Eu-
phrates, and drove its waters over into the Tigris;¹ and he men-
tions, chap. 21,2 the place where the mouth of the Euphrates
originally was, as if discernible in his day. Now it cannot be
imagined that the writer really thought these four rivers had
once a common source, though some of the old commentators,
for whose imagination nothing was too monstrous, fancied that
they had, and even that they were conveyed by some subter-
ranean channels to their present courses; neither can it be
believed that he expected his readers to think him in earnest in
making such a statement. It is rather to be supposed that he
considered the unreality of the representation so evident that
he incurred no danger of being misunderstood, and, in order to
magnify the importance of the stream by which he represented
the garden of Eden to be watered, treated it as the source
of the four greatest rivers known to his countrymen.3 And as
1 Inter duorum amnium ostia, xxv. mil. pass. fuere, aut (ut alii tradunt) vii.
m. utroque navigabili. Sed longo tempore Euphratem præclusere Orcheni, et
accolæ agros rigantes.
2 Locus ubi Euphratis ostium fuit.
These four rivers are enumerated with the Jordan, as well-known rivers in his
day, by the son of Sirach :-" He filleth all things with wisdom, as Phison and Tigris
in the time of the new fruits. He maketh the understanding to abound like
Euphrates, and as Jordan in the time of harvest. He maketh the doctrine of know-
ledge appear as the light, and as Geon in the time of vintage." Ecclus. xxiv. 25–27.
Bishop Lowth, in his re-translation of this into Hebrew, De Sacrâ Poesi Hebræorum,
Præl. xxiv., has river instead of "light," in the last clause but one.
He supposes
that the original Hebrew had instead 11, but that the jod had fallen
out in the translator's copy. He says.-Vide enim quàm incongruè cum cæteris,
Pison, Tigris, Euphrates, Jordanes, Lux, Gihon loco Lucis desideratur Flumen
aliquod, adeòque manifestò legendum erat 8'), ås & Потaµds, ut Fluvius Ille,
nimirùm Nilus. He rightly says that the Nile was commonly known by this designa-
tion, and he quotes Bochart, Chanaan, i. 23, as saying that itself also was used
to denote a river; or est fluvius ut jeor. Ita occurrit Amos viii. 8, ubi de
Nilo. Atque eodem sensu usurpaverat Sirachides Ecclesiast. xxiv. 35, ubi interpres
perperàm pro lumine accepit. On the word, in Amos viii. 8, Fuerst, Heb.
and Chald. Lex., says "it is demonstrably
meaning of the son of Sirach, it would by no means follow that Geon was a different
river. The last clause may have been added merely to make up the even number of
parallel lines, and to explain the less explicit mention of " the river," in the preceding
Îine. And that it is thus epexegetical may also be inferred from the fact that, while
all the other clauses mentioning different rivers are joined by copulatives, these two
are placed in apposition without one: -
If this was the original ". יאר
==
Ὁ ἐκφαίνων ὡς φῶς (δ Ποταμὸς) παιδείαν,
Ως Γηὼν ἐν ἡμέραις τρυγητοῦ.
The identity of the Nile and Gihon would thus be confirmed.
120
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
in the case of the tree of life, so in regard to the river also, the
non-historical character of the representation is confirmed by
the Apocalyptic imitation of it in chap. xxii. 1. As the tree
of life had its counterpart in the heavenly Jerusalem, so was
this latter tree, in like manner, planted by the side of the river
of life clear as crystal, that ran through the city from the
throne of God and of the Lamb. There is a similar mystical
representation of a river proceeding from the sanctuary, and of
trees by its side producing fruit for meat, and healing leaves, in
the vision of Ezekiel (ch. xlvii. 1-12).
And now as the garden of Eden had its mystical trees and
its mystical river, just as in the visions of Ezekiel and St.
John, must not the other trees with which it was planted, good
for food and pleasant to the sight, and the garden itself also,
be regarded as a mystical representation of the ample provision
for the happiness of man in his state of innocence-a provision
of all things needful for life and godliness, for bodily welfare
and for moral probation? This is not the less probable because
there was more than one real country known by the name of
Eden-a name significant of the delightsomeness of the regions
so called, and therefore chosen to describe the imagined situation
of Paradise, as the names of the four great rivers of the ancient
world are adopted to express those which are represented as
springing from the stream that watered it.¹
1 What Eusebius says of the Mosaic Paradise shows that he perceived the necessity
of understanding the garden mystically:-
"On the Mosaic Paradise.-Moses having said in certain mystical words that
at the beginning of the creation of the world, a certain paradise of God was formed,
and that in it the man through the woman was deceived by the serpant, hear what
Plato, himself also allegorizing, hath put in the Symposium, all but translating
word for word, having called the paradise of God, the garden of Jupiter."
Περὶ τοῦ κατὰ Μωσέα παραδείσου. Μωσέως κατά τινας ἀποῤῥήτους λόγους͵ ἐν
ἀρχῇ τῆς τοῦ κόσμου συστάσεως θεοῦ τινα παράδεισον γεγονέναι φάντος, κἂν τούτῳ
τὸν ἄνθρωπον ἠπατῆσθαι διὰ τῆς γυναικὺς πρὸς τοῦ ὕφεως, ἄντικρυς μονονουχὶ τὰ
ῥήματα μεταποιήσας ὁ Πλατων ἑπάκουσον οἷα ἐν Συμποσίῳ καὶ αὐτὸς ἀλληγορῶν
τέθεικεν, ἀντὶ μὲν τοῦ παραδείσου τοῦ θεοῦ, κῆπον διὸς ὀνομάσας, κ.τ.λ.--Evang. Præp.
xii. p. 343, Ed. Steph.
Eden," as Bishop Newton, Dissertation ii., 'On the History of the Creation and
the Fall of our First Parents,' observes, "as the very name signifies, was a pleasant
country, but Paradise was the garden of Eden. It contained every tree that was
pleasant to the sight and good for food,' together with the tree of life in the midst
A
PARADISE AND THE FALL.
121
The object at present being rather to point out the instances
in this narrative that are clearly of an allegorical nature, leav-
ing those that have seemingly a more historical character to be
interpreted from their connexion with these, it may perhaps
be thought that the extraction of the rib and the formation
of a woman from it, as one of the less clearly allegorical par-
ticulars, might be passed over here. Only it is to be observed
that the name which Adam gave to the woman, when she was
brought to him, is the name of the sex and not of the individual
whose proper name was Eve. "She shall be called woman
(), "because she was taken out of man" (N). It was
manifestly assigned to her, in like manner as he gave names to
the several species that had been previously brought to him, on
his perceiving that she, unlike the other creatures, partook of
his own nature. This now at last is bone of his bones and flesh
of his flesh. Yet this, as referring to the literal extraction of
the rib and the formation of the woman of it, only applied to
the individual, and had no more special applicability to her
female descendants than to men derived from her. All alike,
male and female, as made of one flesh by descent from her,
might be said thus to have been bone of the first man's bones,
and flesh of his flesh; but not the female in any special sense
by reason of the extraction of the rib, except the one woman
formed of it. Hence when it is presently after said, as a law for
mankind at large, that a man should therefore "leave his father
and his mother and cleave to his wife, and they shall be one
flesh," the force of this conclusion, and the consequent unity of
the man and his wife as one flesh, as an inference from the form-
ation of the first woman of the extracted rib regarded as a his-
torical fact, wholly fails. Only in a mystical and allegorical sense,
what is related here of the first pair becomes a foundation for the
"
of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil; that is, as I understand it,
the man had there the means of living in all true enjoyments, and attaining to a
happy immortality, but yet with a capacity of swerving from his duty and degene-
rating from good to evil."
122
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
unity of man and wife as one flesh in all time to come. It has not
escaped the notice of commentators that our Lord, referring to
the primitive institution of marriage, as mentioned in St.
Matt. xix., ascribes the words "For this cause" etc. to God
and not to Adam, whose words they appear in Genesis. It has
been supposed by some that our Lord spoke in this way, because
Adam was at the time he said these words speaking by divine
inspiration. There is nothing to warrant this supposition; but
a legitimate conclusion from our Lord's manner of referring to
the words ascribed to Adam is that our Lord regarded the
document as divinely inspired, and that these words, as part
of it, and as intended to express the mind of God on the subject
to which they relate, are therefore called the words of God; and
as, according to the literal representation, Adam could as yet have
had no conception of the descent of mankind, and of the circum-
stances of society under which a man was to leave his father
and mother that he might cleave to his wife, perhaps the
ascription of the words to Adam in Genesis, and to God by our
Lord, may be taken as an indication that our Lord viewed the
narrative rather in the light of an inspired allegorical represen-
tation than of an historical statement. That the unity of flesh
between a man and his wife, which it has been shown could not
have been founded on the formation of the woman from the
extracted rib, except in the one single instance, was yet regarded
1 Cajetan says that he is compelled both by the text itself (ii. 21), and the context,
to regard this production of the woman, not according to the sound of the letter, but
in a mystical and parabolical sense. He argues, first, from the consideration that
if the rib was actually extracted, Adam must either have been a monster before,
or maimed and defective after the operation; secondly, from the absurdity of supposing
that any other creature, as, for instance, a bird, could be imagined as by any possi-
bility an help meet for man; and, thirdly, from the previous statement, that God made
them male and female on the sixth day. Hence he concludes that it agrees alike
with reason and the context, that this formation of the woman of the rib of the man took
place non corporaliter sed secundùm similitudinem. To the objection that the narrative is
in the form of history, he replies that in like manner it is said in an historical form that
the world was created in six natural days with evening and morning, while it is
necessarily to be understood that the works of creation were not formed in six natural
days of this kind; and again, that the punishment of the serpent is thus historically
described, while it would be puerile to understand that in a corporeal sense. Hence
he concludes that his view is not contrary to the sober sense of Scripture, just as the
sober sense of Scripture, which represents God as searching for a mate for the man
and not finding one, is that of a description by similitude.—Comment. in Gen.
PARADISE AND THE FALL.
123
by St. Paul as implying something more than mere unity
of feeling, and of mutual interests and social relation, may be
gathered from his ascribing this unity of flesh not only to the
permanent and duly ratified union of wedlock, but also to
irregular, casual, and merely carnal connexions, as in 1 Cor. vi.
16. The extract from Clement of Alexandria which is sub-
joined below shews that he understood the extraction of the rib
and the consequent assertion, "This is now bone of my bonès
and flesh of my flesh," as significant of something very different
from what is verbally expressed in the narrative.¹
VI. The representation of the tempter as a serpent may be
considered as an unquestionable instance of an allegorical
character.² Hengstenberg, indeed, relies on this taken in its
δ
1“Ανθρωπος γὰρ ἐξ ἀνθρώπου ἐκφύεταί τε, καὶ ἀποσπᾶταί. ὅρα τὸ μέγεθος τῆς
βλάβης· ὅλος ἄνθρωπος ἀποσπᾶται κατὰ συνουσίας ἀπουσίαν. φησὶ γὰρ, Τοῦτο νῦν
ὀστοῦν ἐκ τῶν ὀστέων μου· καὶ σὰρξ ἐκ τῆς σαρκός μου. τοσοῦτον ἄρα ὁ ἄνθρωπος
κενοῦται τῷ σπέρματι, ὅσος δρᾶται τῷ σώματι. ἀρχὴ γὰρ γενέσεως τὸ ἀπαλλαττόμενον.
Clem. Alex. Pædag. II., p. 193, Ed. Sylburg. Cajetan's note may be here subjoined :-
Quod autem subdit: Os ex ossibus meis, et caro de carne meà, mulieris manifestat
naturam simul et productionem. Mulier enim quælibet, cùm sit vir læsus, est os ex
ossibus virilibus, et caro de carne virili, quantum ad productionem: intendit enim
virile semen ad producendum virum; sed defectu interveniente, impotens facere
virum ex integro, efficit virum læsum, hoc est, mulierem: et sic mulier est os ex
ossibus virilibus intentis, et caro de carne virili intenta. Apart from the speculation
that mulier est vir læsus, it is true that "the woman is of the man," bone of his bones and
flesh of his flesh, in the ordinary course of generation, and so a help meet for him, as
distinguished from the other creatures amongst which was found none meet to be
his consort. The Targum of Jerusalem, op. F. Tayleri, 1649, explains v. 18,-
Faciam ei consortem quasi in eam exiisset. In thus explaining the word rendered
“meet for him,” 19, the Targumist had probably in view the Chaldee 712,
manavit, fluxit, as in Dan. vii. 10: “A fiery stream issued (71) and came forth from
before him." This sense is perhaps also to be traced in the Syriac
the causative Aphel,
Aphel, is used in the sense of attraxit, as it were, caused to flow,
which in
in St. John xii. 32.
ܝܢܢܕ
M
2 So Cajetan remarks on Gen. iii. 1., Tum communibus locutionibus sacræ
Scripturæ, tum propriis textus hujus quadrat, serpentis nomine non propriè intelligere
illud brutum, sed metaphoricè Diabolum. Eusebius, in like manner, speaking of this
part of the Mosaic narrative, tells us that there is a wicked spirit lying in wait for
every one, beguiling and hating what is good, that from the commencement plotted
against the salvation of men. He says that Moses calls this demon by the name
of dragon and serpent, being black and akin to darkness, full of poison and malice.
And he adds that by his deceit the first parents of our race fell from the happier lot
in which they had originally been placed. His words are, Πάρεστί τις ἑκάστῳ
πονηρὸς δαίμων ἔφεδρος, βάσκανος καὶ μισόκαλος, καὶ τῆς ἀνθρώπων ἀρχῆθεν ἐπίβουλος
σωτηρίας. Δράκοντα δὲ τοῦτον καὶ Ὄφιν ὀνομάζει, μέλανά τε καὶ σκότους οἰκεῖον, ἰοῦ
τε καὶ κακίας πλήρην.--τούτου δὲ ἀπάτῃ καὶ τοῦς προπάτορας ἡμῶν τοῦ γένους τῆς
Beloтépas λń§ews eкπeσeîr. Præp. Evang. i. 10. It is evident Eusebius did not
suppose that a real serpent was intended.
124
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
realistic acceptation, which he adopts conjointly with the sup-
position of a Satanic tempter using the instrumentality of a
real serpent, as a proof of the purely historical character of the
entire representation, by virtue of the unity of character which
he rightly thinks pervades the whole. The notion of a natural
serpent being the real tempter, which is what the narrative
literally implies, may be dismissed at once, as utterly incon-
sistent with the nature of a serpent. And accordingly, the New
Testament plainly intimates that, according to the view of its
writers, the real tempter was the devil. Thus we read in Apoc.
xx. 2, “That old serpent the devil and Satan." The supposi-
tion that Satan for the occasion merely assumed the appearance
of a serpent is also utterly untenable. That the evil spirit ever
had the power of assuming any material form is what there is
no sufficient reason to suppose. Even our Lord's temptation,
as related in the Gospels, does not necessitate such a supposition
of the tempter having appeared in a material form, or spoken
with audible sounds. In every temptation which extends
beyond a sudden impulse, the pretexts in favour of the act,
and the reasons against it, are realised in the mind of the person
under temptation in the form of words-words which, as respects
the arguments of evil, may in a manner of speaking be regarded
as the words of the tempter. Such a subjective argument with
the tempter, in our Lord's case, is sufficient to satisfy the Gospel
narrative; and, as an example for us, it is more instructive
when thus viewed, as the counterpart of our own temptations.¹
At any rate, if any weight attaches at all to the letter of the
narrative in Gen. iii., it cannot be regarded as merely denoting
the assumption of a serpentine form by Satan for this occasion.
1 And so, in regard to the temptation of Eve, Cajetan remarks,-Non fuit igitur
sermo vocalis, sed sermo internæ suggestionis, quo Diabolus serpere venenosâ
cogitatione incepit. Et eodem sermonis genere universus iste dialogus inter serpentem
et mulierem intelligendus est. Sunt autem sensus isti metaphorici non solùm sobrii
secundùm sacram Scripturam; sed non parùm utiles Christianæ fedei professioni,
præcipuè coram sapientibus mundi hujus percipientes enim quod hæc non ut litera
sonat, sed metaphoricè dicta intelligimus, ac credimus, non horrent hæc de costâ
Adami, et serpente, tanquam fabellas; sed venerantur mysteria, et facilius ea quæ
sunt fidei conplectuntur.- Ubi supra.
PARADISE AND THE FALL.
125
The serpent as a species is first described, and at the end the
penalty has reference, in its literal form, only to the serpent as
a species also. The alternative therefore is, that the entire
reference to the serpent is purely symbolical, or else that Satan
not merely assumed a serpentine form, but actually possessed a
real animal serpent, if the animal itself was not the tempter.
But now, in the first place, as already remarked, there is no
ground whatever for supposing that the evil spirit has ever had
the power of possessing at will any living creature he might
choose to employ for his wicked purposes. Even the demons
in the gospel history, whatever was the nature of that dispensa-
tion under which they possessed mankind, ordinary or extra-
ordinary as it may be thought, had not the power of going into
the swine without the divine permission. Whether this de-
moniacal possession was really a possession by separate spirits
with personal characteristics, or some form of disease in regard
to which our Lord spoke and acted in accordance with the
popular conceptions that were prevalent, certain it is that there
is nothing to connect this possession with the immediate agency
of the devil, except the words of our Lord in reply to the charge
that he cast out the demons by Beelzebub the prince of the
demons. But our Lord's words on that occasion, "If Satan
cast out Satan,"-"if Satan be divided against himself," have
too much the character of an argument ad hominem, to prove
anything as to his own view of this matter. He denies, indeed,
his own employment of the agency of the devil, but it is doubt-
ful if, by casting out Satan, he meant more than the spiritual
efficacy of our Lord's work and teaching to undo the Satanic
evils of the world, of which the casting out of the demons may
have been significant. Only in this way would Satan be divided
against himself; for it is plain that, if it were in his power, he
might co-operate in the ejection of evil spirits for his own
wicked ends. Moreover, the serpent, if possessed by Satan, not
having the organization for articulate speech, the speaking of
the serpent, as well as his possession, was clearly a miraculous
126
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
performance. And it is scarcely conceivable that God would
have allowed such miraculous power to the evil spirit for the
express purpose of deceiving the yet innocent and inexperienced
human couple; especially when, as is devoutly to be believed,
it was God's design to authenticate his revelations to mankind
by miraculous interpositions. And even if we suppose that the
ignorance of the first pair should as yet have made them in-
capable of perceiving that the speech of the serpent was mira-
culous, it is still impossible to believe that, at the opening of a
series of documents intended to be received as divine on the
strength of miraculous evidences, the very first miracle recorded,
after the order of nature was once established, should be a
miracle wrought by the evil one for the purpose of deceiving
and betraying to their ruin the yet innocent parents of the
human race, and with them their descendants also.¹
1 If the arguments drawn in the present day from the invariableness of the order of
nature, against the belief in divine miracles, are not sufficient, as doubtless they are not
to disprove the reality of such performances, it can, however, scarcely be believed that
the author of nature would suffer those laws, the uniformity of which is the expression of
his own veracity, to be disturbed for the deception of mankind. It is true there are powers
in nature of which most men at particular times may have been ignorant, by which pre-
tended miracles may have been wrought. Juggling, and natural magic, and the other
artifices of thaumaturgy, at times had so strongly created a belief in their supernatural
character, that it became needful to warn men against being led astray by such signs
and wonders. That God should interpose to frustrate these natural means of produc-
ing deception, is as little to be expected as that he should interpose in an extraordinary
manner to counteract any other kind of wickedness. And similarly it is not to be
expected that the course of providence should be altered to hinder those occasional
coincidences, by which dreams and oracular sayings have received a remarkable fulfil-
ment,-cases not more frequent in reality than the laws of probability would warrant
men to expect, but remembered for their marvellousness, while the immense number
of failures are forgotten. The fact, therefore, that there may be seeming miracles in
connexion with some form of deadly error, of course renders the moral character
of the doctrine, and its purifying efficacy, a grand element in the evidence of its
truth. At the same time true miracles can never be relied on as testimonies to facts
and truths not naturally discoverable or demonstrable, if any act having the character
of a true miracle may be performed in attestation of a falsehood, or for the purposes
of man's deception. Even the employment of miracles, not for man's deception, but
simply for his probation, would render them useless as attestations of truth. For
we could never be perfectly sure that in any particular case the miracle was intended as an
attestation and not for our trial. The speaking of a serpent is plainly an event out of the
ordinary course of nature, imitable indeed by the art of ventriloquism, but clearly not
thus imitated in the case now under consideration. Ventriloquism in such a case would
imply what is as difficult to believe as the speaking of the serpent, namely the power
of Satan to produce effects cognisable to the human senses a power of which there
is no evidence whatsoever. It may be said, this supposition of the supernatural
agency of the evil spirit is implied in the narrative, and if inadmissible, is itself an
argument against the document which contains the statement. In reply to this,
PARADISE AND THE FALL.
127
But next it is to be observed that, on this realistic supposi-
tion, it is plainly the subtlety of the animal serpent, and not of
the true tempter, that is referred to, as qualifying him for the
temptation, and is brought into play in its accomplishment.
It
is clearly as an animal species that the serpent is said to have
been more subtle than any beast of the field that the Lord God
had made, by reason of that natural craftiness which became
proverbial, as in our Lord's words, "Be ye wise as serpents,
and harmless as doves." Hengstenberg's notion, indeed, is
that this mention of the serpent's subtlety proves the realistic
and literal character and meaning of the representation. No
doubt it proves that a natural serpent is what is literally spoken
of, but it as clearly proves that this natural serpent is only the
symbol of the real tempter. The serpent's subtlety is plainly
mentioned as that by which the success of the temptation was
compassed. Its mention, on any other supposition, is wholly
unmeaning and beside the subject in hand. This leaves us no
alternative, so far as this particular is concerned, but to
suppose either that a real serpent was the tempter by means
of his natural craft, or that the serpent and its subtelty
stand merely as the symbols of the real tempter and his
Satanic craft. The supposition of a late learned writer,
Dr. Donaldson, in his work on the book of Jashar, that the
nakedness, not the craft of the serpent, is intended by the word
Dy, could only have been made with a view to sustain the
peculiar view which that divine adopted in regard to the for-
bidden fruit. As far as the narrative itself explains or suggests
its own meaning, the idea of nakedness is quite irrelevant,
while there are abundant instances of the use of the word in the
sense of crafty, an interpretation adopted by the LXX., who
render it poviμóтaтos, and by St. Paul, who says that the
however, it is to be observed that we contend that the document has in itself sufficient
indications that it was not intended to be understood in the literal acceptation of the
several particulars set forth in it. And this one of a serpent speaking, introduced as
it is without any allusion to a spiritual tempter, and then the penalty inflicted on the
serpent in its animal nature, are relied on as amongst the clearest indications that the
literal acceptation was not intended.-See Note C., p. 248.
128
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
""
serpent deceived Eve ἐν τῇ πανουργίᾳ αὐτοῦ. It is true, a
word similar in sound, D, is used in the sentence next
preceding in the sense of naked. But it will be seen here-
after that this play on sounds and double senses is a striking
characteristic of the entire book. Hengstenberg relies also
on the penalty inflicted on the tempter, "On thy belly
shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy
life, as indicating a real serpent. So also does the reference
to the serpent's treachery in biting the traveller's heel, and the
difficulty of killing a serpent except by a wound on the head.
But then these evidences of the reality of the serpent, as repre-
sented in the text, only show that, as respects the manner
of representation, a natural serpent is really intended; but,
except on the supposition that this serpent was itself the
tempter, they show that the natural serpent is adopted only as
the symbol of the real tempter. Otherwise the innocent animal
receives all the punishment; the really guilty being, the true
tempter, is not even remotely alluded to. And thus the evil
spirit would have accomplished his malignant designs without a
symptom of the divine reprobation, or the faintest intimation
that his triumph should not always prevail to man's destruction.
This would be the plain consequence of the literal acceptation
of the narrative in this particular. It cannot be too strongly
insisted on that such an acceptation leaves no alternative, but
the incredible supposition that a natural serpent was, by some
miraculous exercise of unwonted powers, the sole and conscious
tempter. The notion, therefore, of a natural serpent having
been actually employed in man's first temptation, as this narra-
tive describes it, must be wholly abandoned. The natural
serpent in the narrative stands as the symbol of the real
tempter.¹ Whatever be the nature of Satan's influence in
1 “That was in ancient times the symbol or hieroglyphic, whereby he was usually
represented; and under that, therefore, well-known emblem, he is spoken of in Scrip-
ture history; the language is adapted to the character, and yet in such a manner as
to show that a figurative rather than a real serpent was intended. How the serpent
came to be made the symbol of the tempter, Moses intimates in saying, that the
129
Air
PARADISE AND THE FALL.
L.
man's ordinary temptations, the means by which he suggests
evil to the mind, excites the desires, or offers pretexts for their
unlawful gratification, the first temptation as here described
required nothing more. There is no apparent reason to doubt that
these might have produced the effects ascribed to the suggestions
of the tempter in this narrative without any visible appearance or
audible sounds. A person under temptation will, as already ob-
served, clothe in words, at least mentally, the arguments which an
evil casuistry invents or suggests. Hence those arguments are, in
the symbolical representation of the fall, clothed in words, as if
spoken by the symbolical tempter, though only suggested by
the real one. These suggestions are similar to those with
which men are familiar in all their ordinary temptations :-the
withholding of some supposed advantage, or object of desire, is
made the occasion of discontent; the threatened consequences
of transgression will not follow; God envies us the enjoyment
serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field,' and Aristotle and other
naturalists, as well as Moses, extol the subtlety and insidiousness of the serpent,
which was therefore a proper emblem of the tempter and deceiver of mankind."-
Bishop Newton, in the Dissertation above referred to. The Bishop supposes that in
this narrative "the language is extremely figurative, being taken from the ancient
pictures and hieroglyphics, wherein these transactions were first recorded. These
images and symbols passed into common discourse and became a part of the current
language. It is evidently from them, as things well known and readily apprehended,
that Moses copies his descriptions; he represents things in words just as they were
represented in figures; his style is a kind of picture and should be understood and
explained accordingly."
The remarks of Bishop Sherlock on this subject, may also be quoted with advantage.
As regards those who, without being altogether infidels," are shocked with the cir-
cumstances of this history," he says, "I desire them to consider, that the speculations
arising from the history of the fall, and the introduction of natural and moral evil
into the world, are of all others the most abstruse, and farthest removed out of our
reach: that this difficulty led men in the earliest time to imagine two independent
Principles of Good and Evil, a notion destructive of the sovereignty of God, the
maintenance of which is the principal end and design of the Mosaic history. Had
the history of man's fall plainly introduced an invisible evil being to confound the
works of God, and to be the author of iniquity, it might have given great countenance
to this error of two Principles and since this difficulty might in a great measure
be avoided, by having recourse to the common usage of the eastern countries, which
was to clothe history in parables and similitudes, it seems not improbable that for this
reason the history of the fall was put into the dress in which we now find it. The
serpent was remarkable for an insidious cunning, and therefore stood as a proper
emblem of a deceiver; and yet, being one of the lowest of God's creatures, the emblem
gave no suspicion of any power concerned that might pretend to rival the Creator."
The Use and Intent of Prophecy, Dis. iii. The absence of a personal devil from
the subsequent Biblical writings until we reach those of the latest period, if the book
of Job be referred to that period, is in full accordance with the Bishop's supposition.
M
130
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
of the wished-for gratification, whether of sense or of intellect.
Then these suggestions fall in with the natural appetites and
inclinations, just as the woman saw that the tree was good
for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be
desired to make one wise. There is nothing in all this to
require a visible and audible tempter; it takes place in our
own minds without one, often without an external personal
tempter at all, as far as there are any means of judging in
such a matter.
As regards the transgression itself, that which constituted the
corpus delicti, what has already been said in disproof of the
supposition that the tree of knowledge of good and evil was a
real tree goes equally to disprove that the transgression consisted
in partaking of the natural fruit of that supposed real and
natural tree. On the supposition that the tree was mystical
and allegorical, there is nothing in the account to throw any
light on the particular offence which was of such terrible con-
sequences to mankind at large. That there must have been
some one first overt act of sin is of course evident. That such
overt act did not constitute the whole, much less the commence-
ment, of the transgression is also plain. There must have been
some internal sin, some point at which natural appetite passed
into that stage of its progress when, as St. James says, lust has
conceived, and at which the sin thus conceived, though yet unborn
into an overt act, was quickened into mental transgression.
That point, lost in the mystery that envelopes every beginning
of existence, mental or material, of thought or of act or of
substance, was the real fall, and is better represented by the
mystical symbol of the participation of forbidden fruit, than
by an historical narrative that should only specify the overt
act in words to be taken in their literal acceptation.¹
Here again we may quote Bishop Newton: "What was the particular nature of
the sin of our first parents, it is not an easy matter to determine. Eating forbidden
fruit,' is nothing more than a continuation of the same hieroglyphic characters,
wherein the history of the fall was recorded before the use of letters. It was plainly
the violation of a divine prohibition; it was indulging an unlawful appetite; it was
▸
i
PARADISE AND THE FALL.
131
VII.—The manner in which God is represented as walking
in the garden in the cool of the day, and as it were talking to
himself aloud so that his voice is heard by the guilty pair, who
in consequence try to shun his observation and to hide them-
selves from his visible presence, has already been noticed as an
instance of the divine anthropism which pervades the whole
passage and forms a strong proof of its allegorical character.
The sentences of condemnation pronounced on the offenders,
therefore, next claim attention. And first, as regards the
serpent¹ and the condemnation of it to go upon the belly and to
feed upon dust, this having respect only to the animal serpent,
as such, and not at all to the real and guilty tempter, has just
now been insisted on as an evidence of the symbolical character
of the serpent as it appears in this narrative. It is further to
be noted here, that such a change of habits as is implied in this
sentence of condemnation would require a change of organiza-
tion amounting to a virtual transmutation of species, and, so
far as the name denotes the nature and is significant of the
species, what would be properly called a serpent after such a
transmutation would not have been a serpent at all before it.
Nor would such a transformation, however it might be regarded
by an intelligent observer as a degradation of nature, be to the
animal itself any punishment whatever. All sentient creatures
have their happiness in the habits for which they are formed and
P
aspiring after forbidden knowledge, and pretending to be wise above their condition.
So much may be safely asserted in general; we bewilder and lose ourselves in search
of more particulars."
While St. Augustine supposes that a real serpent was used as an instrument by
the devil, he regards the entire sentence pronounced on the serpent as figurative:
Tota ista sententia figurata est. Quod serpenti dicitur, et ad eum qui per serpentem
operatus est utique refertur, procul dubio figuratum est.-De Gen. ad Lit.
XI. xxxvi. 49.
"The sentence upon the serpent is no more to be understood of a real serpent
than the same figure employed by Isaiah (lxv. 25), when, speaking of the triumphs
of the Gospel, he saith, that dust shall be the serpent's meat.' It is to be under-
stood in the same manner as when the prophet Micah (vi. 17), saith of the enemies
of the Lord, that they shall lick the dust like a serpent.""--Bishop Newton, in the
Dissertation quoted already.
Justly, therefore, Cajetan remarks that it would be puerile to understand this
corporeally. Puerile esse constat intelligere illam (sc. pœnam) corporaliter ut sonat.
-Comment. in Gen.
132
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
adapted by their nature, and a change of nature, which would
necessitate a change of habits, would make the new and altered
habits essential to the comfort of the creature, instead of a
punishment to it. All creatures, too, but men, seem perfectly
contented with the condition in which they exist, with habits
and in circumstances perfectly adapted to their nature. It
requires a degree of intelligence beyond that which is possessed
by the brute animals-a power of comparing one condition and
state of existence with another, and of estimating the real
or supposed advantages of each-to be capable of feeling such a
change from one state to another, as would still imply an adap-
tation of nature and habits and circumstances, to be a degrada-
tion or punishment. Moreover, the enmity which was to be
established between the serpent and its seed and the woman and
her seed, as here described, is a natural antipathy, grounded on
the nature of the creature, and is not confined to the case of the
serpent, or greater in its case than in that of any equally per-
nicious animal. The wounding of the heel and the crushing
of the head are also founded in the nature of the animal, in its
crawling and treacherous habits and the difficulty of inflicting a
mortal wound except on its head. All this, as in its literal
import it merely relates to the animal and leaves the real tempter
out of view altogether, must for that reason be regarded as quite
symbolical. The grovelling motion of the serpent and the con-
sequent mingling of dust with all its food are significant in a
high degree of the grovelling and debasing nature of sin, and of
the filthy and unsatisfying gratifications which it ministers, espe-
cially of the sin which designedly betrays the innocent into
transgression. The conflict predicted between the serpent's and
the woman's seed well describes the perpetual conflict between
mankind and the principles of evil-a conflict that was to
culminate and find its triumph in One who should be in a pre-
eminent sense the woman's seed. And though this, as we
now understand it, is a literal fulfilment of the prediction
in that particular of special derivation from the woman,
書
​PARADISE AND THE FALL.
133
the serpent and its seed are still figurative. It is only the
mystery of Christ's incarnation that enables us to see in the
words anything beyond the seed of the woman as naturally
begotten in successive generations, however, as time rolled on,
and the conflict was still waged without any decisive victory,
the thoughtful might have been led to anticipate some particular
person as the promised seed rendered more definite by subsequent
predictions. And though in the fulfilling of this there was a
realising of the words in their strictest and most literal signifi-
cance, according to the Christian doctrine of the incarnation,
yet even here the general allegorical character of the represen-
tation holds good in the most decided form. It is in accordance
with the general nature of the entire piece that the persons,
divine and human,¹ that are introduced should be real persons,
and yet that the acts and words attributed to them should be
mystical and symbolical. As God, the man and the woman,
so in like manner the woman's seed, whether the expression
denote mankind in general or Christ in particular, was to be
real and historical. Still the wounding of the heel of the
woman's seed, and the bruising of the serpent's head are under
any circumstances purely symbolical, as all must admit.
The sentence pronounced on the woman seems, no less, to
describe circumstances pertaining to her natural condition as
woman, rather than any directly penal consequences of her trans-
The only person that does not appear under his proper designation is the tempter.
One can scarcely help eonnecting this with the absence of any other reference to the
evil spirit in the early books of the Holy Scripture, as remarked in a former note.
May not the veiling of the tempter, under the symbol of the serpent in this place, and
the abstinence from any further reference to him, have proceeded, as Bishop Sherlock
suggests, from an apprehension lest, in the state of religious development then existing
amongst the children of Israel their superstitious and idolatrous tendencies might have
led them to render him religious worship? The dualism, which in later times effloresced
in the Gnostic and Manichæan heresies, had its root in the Eastern mind from a very re-
mote antiquity. The idolatrous tendencies of the Jews were passing away when the
notion of the devil or Satan was developed amongst them in later times. Of course
this remark implies the late composition of the book of Job. But the fact that as a
very early production it would stand singularly distinguished by the representation of a
personal evil being under the designation of Ha-Satan, the adversary, may justly be
regarded as strongly confirming the later origin of that book, now generally admitted
by Biblical critics. In the absence of any belief of a personal evil spirit, the sym-
bolical character of the representation and the subjective nature of the temptation
would be readily perceived by intelligent readers.
134
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
gression. In the words "I will greatly multiply thy sorrow
and thy conception," if the conception is to be taken as dis-
tinguished from the pains consequent on it, its multiplication is
certainly no punishment; it is only the carrying out of the origi-
nal blessing, "Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth,"
and apart from the attendant sorrows, and even in spite of them,
it is the joy of a woman. But even if the words be taken to
denote only the sorrows of conception according to a customary
manner of speaking, the increase of these seems to imply that
they would have had some existence even if the fall had not
taken place; and an argument may thus be derived even from the
very words of the sentence against the notion of St. Augustine
that, if the fall had not taken place, there would have been genera-
tion without passion, and parturition without pain.¹ Doubtless,
while the inferior animals do not bring forth without pain, it seems
to be much greater in the case of women. This, however, seems
to be the natural result of their finer and more delicate organi-
zation; and as this is increased by the refinements and artificial
habits of civilised life, the effect is doubtless greater in that
state than in the savage and uncivilised, or in the simpler habits
of man's primitive innocence. And as the vices and follies of
mankind have had a large share in deteriorating the human
constitution through long succeeding generations, much of the
ills to which the sentence on the woman refers may doubtless
be the natural result of the fall. There are also anxieties and
mental pains, which even in the moment of a woman's joy that a
man is born into the world impair a mother's happiness,-
anxieties and sorrows occasioned by the forebodings of evil for
her offspring in this sinful world, which are exemplified in the
name Abel, by which Eve is represented as calling her second-
born son.
But independently of these sorrows, the natural
pains of child-birth seem, in accordance with the analogy of
other viviparous animals, to belong to the human race also by
its original physical constitution; and these are the sorrows
1 Ut neque cum ardore seminaretur, neque cum dolore pareretur.-De Gen. ad Lit.,
IX. x. 18.
PARADISE AND THE FALL.
135
which seem specially intended in the purely physical part of
the sentence. And then, in the less physical part of the
sentence, the direction of the woman's desire towards that of
the man, and the husband's dominion over the wife, seem proper
to the natural and innocent state no less than to the fallen con-
dition of mankind. The sexual impulses of the woman have in
them more of the moral and less of the physical than in the case
of the man, and the foundation of all purity in woman seems to
be that her desire is rather to gratify the man than herself,
and herself only in that way. And when in any instance the
case is otherwise, the individual is of a lower and degraded type.
So far therefore as the sentence refers to such impulses, it rather
denotes the purer and finer, than the grosser and less pure,
manifestations of this part of a woman's nature. The general
subjection of the wife to the husband, and the prevalence of his
will over her's, seems necessary to the happiness of the married
state, irrespectively altogether of the fall. It was implied in the
original design of the woman's formation as expressed in the
previous part of the narrative, namely, that she should be an
help meet for the man. When two persons naturally possessed
of independence are united in such a relation as that of wedlock,
one must of necessity have the right to prevail over the other;
and the more morally perfect such a couple might be, the more
completely would such a relation as that which is expressed in
the sentence on the woman have been realised. And accord-
ingly, in reference to this whole sentence, St. Augustine, who yet
leans much to the realistic acceptation of the narrative in this
as in other particulars, observes that it seems more conveniently
to be understood figuratively; and in reference to the latter
part of it, that it cannot be believed that even in the unfallen
state the woman was otherwise constituted than that the man
should rule over her, and she should serve him. But then, ac-
2
¹ Et mulieri dixit, multiplicans et cetera. Hæc quoque in mulierem Dei verba,
figuratè ac propheticè multo commodius intelliguntur. De Gen. ad Lit. XI.
xxxvii. 50.
2 Neque enim et ante peccatum aliter factam fuisse decet credere mulierem, nisi ut
136
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
St
cording to the general character of this narrative, things
natural and material stand as the types and symbols of what is
moral and spiritual. And these natural conditions of the woman
are the fitting symbols of that moral defect produced by trans-
gression, and of its consequences, whereby what would else have
been accepted and acquiesced in, as being the necessary conditions
of her state and place in the economy of human nature, have
become a real punishment through the discontent, the perverse-
ness of will, and the rebelliousness of spirit which have by the
fall been engendered in mankind. The entire economy of man's
increase on the earth has thus become the occasion of the worst
ills of life, ills in which it may safely be said woman has been
the greatest sufferer as being the weaker vessel. What are the
mere natural sorrows of her conception thus become the type of
unspeakable woes, of which this economy has by sin become the
occasion to her. The natural rule of her husband is suggestive of
the dreadful tyranny which man has too often exercised over her,
both in wedlock and out of it, while the reluctance to submit to it,
which is part of the rebellious spirit that sin has introduced into
the world, has been to herself the occasion of the greatest misery.
It is in this point of view also that the sentence on the man
must be regarded. The curse of the ground for man's sake has
its real existence in man's own fallen nature. The thorns and
thistles it should bring forth for his punishment are natural
productions, as good in their kind as the fruits on which man
lives, useful as affording the natural food of other creatures, and
in general filling a place in the economy of nature. Even in
Eden there was need of counteracting by labour the spontaneous
Ubi supra,
vir ei dominaretur, et ad eum ipsa serviendo converteretur.
The service
to be rendered by the woman in her innocence he compares with that recommended by
St. Paul, Gal. v. 13, "By love serve one another;" that denounced by the sentence,
to the servitude into which some men were brought to others as a penal consequence
of sin. But then it will be perceived that this difference arises not from a change in
the nature of the relation, but from a change in the moral state of the persons
themselves.
Hence St. Augustine suggests that it is said, not simply parict, but pariet tibi.
He supposes that thorns and thistles existed before the fall, that they were useful as
affording food to birds and beasts, and might have had uses for mankind also; but
that they became a trouble to man after the fall, when he began to labour in cultivat-
PARADISE AND THE FALL.
137
growth of such natural productions as would else have been to
the detriment of cultivated fruits. The man was placed in the
garden to dress and to keep it. This manner of representing
man's primitive state plainly implies that the ground naturally
produces its fruits irrespectively of their use to man, who must use
care to obtain such as are beneficial to himself, that a state of idle-
ness was never contemplated, and that the toil, which in the sen-
tence is presented as a penalty, was really a needful good in man's
innocent as well as in his guilty state. Dislike to labour in
due moderation is itself a sinful consequence of the fall; and the
natural reluctance to excessive labour makes the necessity of it,
which a state of society that is partly the result of sin has pro-
duced, a real punishment. The inequality in the amount of labour
each has to perform, the differences in its kind, the discontent that
each feels with the irksomeness of his own work, of which he is
sensible, as compared with that of others, which he does not
feel and therefore does not think as great as that of his own
labour, the difficulty so many find by the utmost labour to
maintain their existence in a selfish and rapacious world,—all
these and many other effects of human sin have made the
labour that would have been man's happiness in his inno-
cence, and so often is his happiness now too in many ways,
and at any rate conduces to or is necessary for his welfare,
to be at the same time felt as a punishment, and actually to be
so in many instances and in some respects. Still it is in man
himself that the curse exists, and not in the labour, nor in the
thorns and thistles which the ground brings forth and which
make the labour necessary, nor in the ground itself, the naturally
barren soil of which becomes fruitful by labour, while the fruit-
ful soil becomes profitless for want of it. Doubtless there were
barren places that labour might clothe with verdure, and there
ing the ground. Non quòd aliis in locis hæc antea nascerentur, et pòst in agris quos
homo ad capiendas fruges coleret; sed et prius et postea in iisdem locis; prius tamen
non homini, pòst autem homini, ut hoc significatur quod additum est, tibi: quia nou
est dictum, Spinas et tribulos pariet, sed pariet tibi; id est ut tibi jam ista nasci inci-
piant ad laborem, quæ ad pastum tantummodo aliis animalibus antea nascebantur.
De Gen. ad Lit. III. xviii. 28.
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
138
In
was luxuriant vegetation that needed to be checked by labour,
before the fall as after it. The labour of head and hand, which is
able to effect so much in spite of all the obstacles to its beneficial
exercise which sin has raised, would have had its blessed func-
tions in an innocent world, as it has in a guilty one also, though
in the latter man's sin has made it to be felt as a curse.
general it may be said that beings created with appetites and
wants must of necessity incur some measure of trouble, if not of
toil, that their wants may be satisfied and their desires fulfilled.
All creatures not absolutely perfect and infinite must have de-
fects, and at times find themselves in circumstances of inconve-
nience and disadvantage. Physical evil is therefore in some
degree the necessary condition of existence in an imperfeet
state. Such a state must, to a being possessed of a moral nature,
be the occasion of a moral probation, and impose the obligation
of self-control, the denial of inclinations and propensions, and
a cheerful submission to the necessary conditions of such an
imperfect state of existence. There is nothing penal in its una-
voidable ills, so long as the moral character remains unimpaired;
once that has undergone a depravation, those ills become them-
selves the punishment of the sinful dispositions that rise up
in opposition to them, while the indulgence in such dispositions
has a baneful effect in their multiplication and the aggravation
of their irksomeness. Even the last particular of the sentence
on guilty man, his return to the dust from whence he was taken,
is a natural condition of all animal existence. The observation
of death in the inferior animals, coupled with the knowledge
that man has himself a like animal nature, and with the instinct
of self-preservation of which he is also conscious, would lead
even innocent man to anticipate for himself at some time the
dissolution of his mortal frame. However that might have
been warded off by a special dispensation of providence, or in
whatever way it might be deprived of its most repulsive physical
characteristics, the removal of the older generations of men, as
men would in course of time multiply and require room beyond
PARADISE AND THE FALL.
139
what the limits of this earth would afford, would independently
of the fall have necessitated some kind of euthanasia or other
means of withdrawal from this world. Even if that were to be
strictly speaking death, it would in such case have wanted that
sting of death which is sin, and which is what makes it so terrible
a punishment to guilty men. It is not simply death, such as
might be the peaceful transition of the innocent to a more perfect
state, that is the real penalty in this sentence, but death with the
unseen terrors of future retribution looming in the view of a guilty
conscience. Whatever may be thought of the preservation of
unfallen man from death in its present manner of dissolution
and corruption, at any rate, in the sentence pronounced after the
fall, as represented in this narrative, that which constitutes the
chief part of the penalty, the future retribution and the sting
which the apprehension of that future retribution gives to death
in the case of the guilty, is wholly left out of view. It is true
this omission is characteristic of the Old Testament generally, and
in particular of the Mosaic part. Still not the less does physical
death, in accordance with the symbolical character which pervades
this entire passage, represent that which is the more terrible
part, the real punishment. Even to fallen men, though they
have through their lifetime been subject to bondage in fear of
death, yet by the hope of a blessed immortality it is robbed of its
terrors, and they can say with the Apostle, "O death, where is
thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?" Death to innocent
man, as the peaceful transition to a happier state, would certainly
――――
¹ Donec post vitam bene gestam in melius mutari mererentur.-St. Augustin, De
Gen. ad Lit., XI. xxviii. 50. Potuerunt homines genitis filiis, perfectâque humani
officii justitia, hine ad meliora transferri, non per mortem, sed per aliquam commuta-
tionem. IX. vi. 10. On the whole sentence inflicted on the mau, the note of Cajetan
may be here subjoined with advantage: Adverte prudens lector quòd quemadmodum
mors, quæ suâpte naturà consequebatur hominem, pœna est propter ademptum benefi-
cium ex peccato, ita impedimenta spinarum, dolores, sudores, ac labores inter pœnas
supputantur propter beneficium divinum præservativum hominis ab istis ademptum ex
eodem peccato. Ita quòd non est mutata conditio terræ: sed est mutata conditio hominis
ex statu privilegiato in suum naturalem statum. This status privilegiatus, however,
may have consisted only in his own virtue and the general blessing of God attendant on
it. [“And death by sin," that is, death which at first was the condition of Nature,
became a punishment upon that account: just as it was to the serpent to creep upon
his belly, and to the woman to be subject to ber husband. These things were so be-
fore, and would have been so. But it had not been a curse.'-Bp. Taylor, Unum
Necessarium, ch. vi. sect. i. 7.]
140
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
have had no penal character, and would have been regarded only
as one of the unavoidable ills of an earthly state, to be undergone
with submission, preparatory to his entrance on the heavenly
state clothed in the spiritual as distinguished from the natural
body. And accordingly, St. Paul in contrasting the first
Adam by whom death came with the second Adam by whom
comes the resurrection of the dead, seems to refer the mortality
of the first, not to the fall as the penal consequence of it, but to
the original formation of man as of the earth earthy, and as
made a living or natural soul by God breathing into him the
breath of life. And at the close, when he speaks of the Chris-
tian's triumph over death, he intimates that it is not over death as
a natural condition that this triumph is obtained, but over death
as deriving a sting from sin which but for sin it would not have.
This it is which converts a natural condition of our earthly ex-
istence into a penal infliction, and makes bodily death the fitting
symbol of the retribution of man's transgression, of that second
death which is the sequel of bodily death to the impenitent.
And then in connexion with this sentence of man's return to
the dust from whence he was taken stands the concluding par-
ticular in the narrative, his exclusion from access to the tree of
life which, as has been shown, symbolized the gift of eternal life
to the innocent, but from which he is prohibited by the Cheru-
bim and the flaming sword, that were placed to keep the way of
the tree of life, lest the man should put forth his hand and take of it
and eat and live for ever. Thus is well represented man's final
exclusion from eternal life, as far as his own ability and the re-
ligion of nature could enable him to obtain it, and the barrier
which the divine condemnation on the one hand, and a guilty
conscience on the other, have raised between sinful man and his
offended Maker.
VIII. This whole narrative has now been reviewed at length,
its peculiarities have been noticed, and it has been found that
a very large proportion must needs be taken in a mystical or
allegorical sense. The tentative and suppletory character of the
PARADISE AND THE FALL.
141
order and progress of creation, as here represented, is so plainly
conformed to the manner of human operations, and so unlike
what we conceive must be the absolute nature of the divine
operations, that of itself it might suggest to us the probability
that a mystical representation was intended. The divine anthro-
pism that has been shown to prevail also in other particulars
tends to the same conclusion. This, at any rate, cannot be taken
in its downright literal acceptation, but must be regarded as a
manner of representation widely differing from the reality it
symbolizes. And then it has been found that each particular
of the narrative is presented in the same historical form, while
a large proportion of the particulars thus indicated can only be
regarded as mystical representations of facts that must have been
far different as actual events, though truly such as here repre-
sented in their moral aspect. These particulars of allegorical
import being thus blended indiscriminately in the same historical
form with others, the mystical character of which is equally
possible, though not so necessary when they are viewed by
themselves, the natural conclusion is that these latter, as well as
the others, are alike mystical. And thus the whole narrative is
to be regarded as a parabolical representation, setting forth
under a veil certain important facts, and inculcating great
moral principles, which when thus presented, are more likely to
impress the minds for which this account was more immediately
intended, than if those principles were set forth in their naked
abstract form. There is a stage in the progress of the human
mind at which everything must be presented in this concrete
form. Children must have tales and fables to impress a moral on
their minds with practical conviction. The oriental mind seems
in some important respects to have never advanced beyond this
stage. Hence arose the prevalence of apologue and parable and
mystical representation in the entire literature of the East.
This method of conveying instruction was adopted by the pro-
phetic teachers of the Old Testament, and was stamped with a
still more immediate divine sanction by the practice of our
142
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
blessed Lord himself. And there is this important difference
between a literal narrative of historical facts and a mystical
representation in an historical form, that the former cannot be
logically generalised, while the latter being designed to exem-
plify general truths, which are embodied in a particular concrete
form, the arrival at the implied generalities is that to which the
narrative was itself intended to lead. The concrete form suits
the weaker apprehension of the more simple stages of human
intelligence. The air of ideality which the narrative, with all
its historical aspect, still bears about it naturally suggests that
something more is meant than meets the eye or reaches the
ear; the mind is thus drawn into an effort to penetrate the veil,
and the truth, when once attained, impresses the mind more
forcibly by means of the effort that was necessary to reach it.
The necessity of the same effort becomes to the thoughtless the
occasion of their missing the designed instruction, and thus their
thoughtlessness is punished by the very form in which the truth
is presented, while the thoughtful are by the same means re-
warded. Hence our Lord said to the disciples, "Unto you it is
given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but to
others in parables, that seeing they may not see, and hearing
they may not understand." And so as regards the narrative
contained in the second and third chapters of Genesis, everything
of practical importance which would be taught by it, if viewed as a
downright historical account of events as they actually happened,
may perhaps be regarded as more effectually conveyed by it, when
considered as a parabolical representation. It sets forth no less
strikingly, and with greater generality, the happiness of man in
his state of innocence, and the fact that that happiness was
dependent on the conduct of man, as even in his innocence placed
in a state of probation. In the literal narrative these things are
represented in a more physical and material form, while the
mystical acceptation introduces the reader to the spiritual
realities thus shadowed forth. With special reference to pre-
vailing vices, the fitting conditions of the marriage union are
PARADISE AND THE FALE.
143
represented, and the permanency and purity of the tie incul-
cated. Then the nature and sources of temptation in general
are strikingly exhibited, and the special weakness of woman
when exposed to it, with the peril that arises when she becomes
a tempter to man. These are presented with a wider generality
by the story viewed as a mystical adumbration, than as a state-
ment of what actually took place in one particular instance;
though doubtless what is thus common to all temptations
virtually took place in the instance of the first. The tre-
mendous fact of the fall of man from his first innocence is no
less clearly presented in the one form than in the other, while
the consequences of that event in turning even the common
conditions of humanity, and the natural circumstances of the
earthly state of man's existence, into a curse, are no less strik-
ingly manifested, and with a wider generality. The constant
strife that man should ever maintain with the principles of evil
and the authors of it, the conflict between the law of the mind
and the law in the members warring against it, the partial
success of evil, and the final triumph of good over the powers
of darkness, through what seems with special significance to be
designated as the woman's seed, stand out with equal distinct-
ness, as if the particulars of the statement were to be taken in
their historical literality as here described. And far more in-
structive and of more general significance is the mystical import
of the Cherubim with the flaming sword which turned every
way, to keep the way of the tree of life against the offenders
expelled from Paradise, as representing the loss of that eternal
life which was to reward man's unsinning obedience,-the sword
of divine justice uplifted against him, prohibiting the hope of
regaining for himself the lost inheritance,-that sword which,
sharper than any two-edged sword of man's making, pierces to
the dividing asunder the soul and spirit, is a discerner of the
thoughts and intents of the heart, probes the conscience and
1
This figure in the Epistle to the Hebrews of a two-edged sword piercing to the
dividing asunder the soul and spirit, and discerning the thoughts and intents of the
ܕܪܬ
144
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
rankles in it with the torments of remorse; far more in-
structive is all this than the mere local expulsion of a guilty
pair from an earthly garden, and the hindrance of their return
to it even by the flaming sword of visible Cherubim, according
to the literal representation of this narrative. Though the
historical reality of the commencement of human sin in the first
actual transgression, and of its fatal consequences, underlies this
representation, yet the ideality of the manner of representation
makes it no less applicable to the case of all temptation issuing
in sin, at all times and under all circumstances, and to the con-
sequences and effects of such transgression in general.
Such a mode of representation, which, as has now been shown,
will serve for its religious uses in all respects equally well as, and
in some respects even better than a purely historical statement
of literal facts, is free from many difficulties which have made
this narrative, on the supposition that it should be understood
in the latter sense, a stumbling block to the sceptical, and an
occasion of ridicule to scoffers. And it is not those particulars
which at first sight might be thought encumbered with the
greatest difficulty that chiefly have had this effect. Such as
bear more immediately on the face of them the marks of allegory
and symbolical representation afford less scruple for this very
reason, as they are more readily perceived to be such, and are
consequently taken at once in their true acceptation. It is the
particulars which are more capable, as considered in themselves,
of being regarded as historical in their literal acceptation that
create the chief difficulty. Some of these particulars, which,
taken allegorically, stand in accordance with the nature of
all symbolism as the fitting representations of what is con-
cealed under the veil of a simple naturalism, have a childish
heart, seems to be employed with a manifest allusion to the flaming sword that turned
every way to keep the way of the tree of life. If the writer had this in his view, the
allusion is another instance of mystical import recognised in the New Testament as
pertaining to the representations in which the circumstances of man's creation and
fall are presented in this narrative of the book of Genesis, such as those already
noticed in the case of the river of Paradise and the tree of life and the tree of
knowledge of good and evil.
PARADISE AND THE FALL.
145
air about them as historical realities, and would seem even
ludicrous in any document not invested in our conceptions with
a sacred character. The making the destiny of the world to
depend on the eating of an apple, as it is commonly said; the
effort to find amongst the inferior animals an help meet for
man; the extraction of the rib for the formation of the
woman; the sewing of the fig leaves by the man and the
woman to make themselves aprons, together with the stress
laid on the absence of shame in their previous state of naked-
ness, and the subsequent provision of garments by God
himself; the hearing of the voice of God walking in the
garden in the cool of the day, and the hiding amongst the trees
for shame of their nakedness; these particulars, let it be said
with reverence, would seem simply ludicrous and silly, if pre-
sented to us as things to be literally understood in any pro-
duction not supposed to be sacred, and could scarcely fail to
produce a similar impression if now read for the first time even
in a document believed to be of divine authority. Our famil-
iarity with them in childhood, when their childishness as
matters of historical fact did not of course attract the notice of
our childish apprehension, the subsequent retaining of the senti-
ments of our childhood, and the unbroken reverence with which
we have ever since regarded this sacred document, have saved
these particulars from being viewed in such an unpleasant light
by men of devout and religious minds; and even with those who
are not religious, this early habit has largely prevailed to the
same effect. With the profane and the sceptical they are
doubtless either an occasion of ridicule or an obstacle to faith.
No less difficulty is presented by some of the other particulars
1 "Magna vis est consuetudinis et præconceptæ opinionis, in animos humanos. Hos
breves commentarios aut historiolas de hominum rerumque primordiis, ex ore Mosis
sine examine, sine morâ, accipimus et amplectimur. Apud alium verò si eandem
doctrinam legissemus, puta apud Philosophum Græcum, apud Doctorem Rabbinicum,
aut Mahometanum, hæsisset animus in unâquâque periodo, dubiis et objectiunculis
plenus. Hoc discrimen oritur non ex naturà rei ant materiæ subjectæ, sed ab opinione
nostrâ de fide et authoritate scriptoris, utpote divinitus inspirati. Hoe libenter
agnoscimus, nec dubitatur hoc loco de authoritate scriptoris, sed quo animo, quo
consilio hæc scripserit, quo genere styli usus fuerit."--Dr. Thomas Burnet, Archeologiæ
Philosophica, Lib. II., ch. vii., p. 385.
10
146
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
•
¡
of the history, which are not liable to be regarded in a ludicrous
point of view. The rivers of Paradise proceeding from one
source; the preservation of life for ever by the natural fruit of a
tree; the speaking of a serpent as if quite naturally, and, if re-
garded as a miraculous effect, its occurrence and use for the
purpose of man's deception and eternal ruin; the punishment
of the serpent as if it were the real and only tempter, and that
punishment only what must have been the natural condition of
the animal already; the motive with which God resents the
acquisition by man of the knowledge of good and evil, and by
which he is influenced in hindering his acquisition of im-
mortality, namely, a jealousy of man's approaching too near
to himself in the enjoyment of privileges, which, in the ex-
clusive possession of them, he strives to retain to himself; all
these particulars on a system of literal and realistic interpre-
tation present serious difficulties, which would weigh strongly
with many minds. The effect of such a manner of interpreta-
tion in regard to such minds would either be the exclusion
of this portion from the sacred canon, or else the weakening of
their reverence for the whole, of which this is regarded as
an integral part. Only the symbolical acceptation of the en-
tire can consistently and effectually free it from these diffi-
culties. And just in proportion as it has been shown that a
large part was plainly intended to be thus understood, while
unity of character apparently pervades the whole, and sound
principles of interpretation demand uniformity in the manner
of explanation throughout, does this symbolical acceptation
claim to be admitted as the only and true explanation, with
a force that carries conviction, and clears the document from all
the objections to which it is otherwise liable.
IX. Against the mystical and symbolical manner of explana-
tion of this narrative which has been just advocated, Hengsten-
berg sums up a series of general objections, which can be met
with more advantage now that the several particulars which
tend to prove that this is the character of the entire document
PARADISE AND THE FALL.
147
have been considered in detail. It will be perceived that the
improbability, such as it may be, which these general objections
create, can have no weight against a sufficient proof that any
one particular is mystical in its signification. And if there be
any such, as plainly there are, their effect, so far as it might
weigh in regard to others which are capable of being literally
explained, would only be to show that, if these be thus understood,
the passage taken as a whole is a piebald and inconsequent jumble
of literal and symbolical representations. How little the argu-
ments relied on tend to create such an impression as to the nature
of the document will appear from a brief consideration of them.
The following are the objections, as summed up by Hengstenberg,
Christologie, Th. i., Abth. i. p. 26 :—“ To the allegorical inter-
pretation of the entire passage there are many objections. The
connexion with the sequel, in which the history of the same
human pair, that is here treated of, is carried on-the exact
geographical representation of Paradise-the fact that the con-
dition of mankind, which in this passage is announced as a
punishment, is real-the want of any mark which might indicate
that the author meant to give an allegory and not a history-
the passages of the New Testament in which the history of the fall
is taken as actual history (comp. 2 Cor. xi. 3, 1 Tim. ii. 13, 14,
Rom. v. 12)-the embarrassment, uncertainty, and arbitrariness
of allegorical interpreters, when they would point out the truth
that lies at the foundation, which yet, in case the author
designed an allegory, should present itself so distinctly that it
could not be missed."
1. The first of these objections is the connexion with the
sequel, in which the history of the same human pair is carried
on. But it is to be observed in the first place, that this objec-
tion is founded on the assumption of an uninterrupted continuity
of composition with the sequel; and as the same human pair
are likewise presented to us in the preliminary narrative of
the first chapter, identified by the name Adam, this con-
tinuity must be carried back to it as well as forward to
148
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
the sequel. Against such an assumption are the strong
grounds already shown for separating this narrative, at least
as regards continuity of composition, from the preceding
narrative of the creation, such as the inconsistency of the two
accounts taken as a literal history of the order and manner of
creation, and the remarkable difference of usage as respects the
name of the Creator in each, this latter being an equally strong
reason for separating this document from the sequel. These
reasons have had sufficient weight with a numerous and able
body of critics to form the basis of an hypothesis of different
authorship. Though they may seem far short of proving dif-
ferent authorship, they strongly make against the supposition of
an uninterrupted continuity of narration. But, in the second
place, the symbolical and mystical explanation of the narrative
has reference to the facts relating to the human pair represented
in this allegorical form, not to the human pair themselves. It is
not supposed that these are an allegorical couple, but the same
actual pair as in the subsequent parts of the history; only this
document, complete and distinct in itself, represents real facts in
the history of this couple in a symbolical form, whatever be the
manner of representation adopted in the sequel.
2. The second objection is derived from the exact geographical
description of the situation of Paradise. This, so far from being
an objection to the mystical explanation, forms, under the cir-
cumstances, a very striking evidence in its favour. If, indeed,
there existed any four such rivers as are described, including in
their number the Euphrates and Tigris, arising at one common
source and divided from one parent stream, then indeed it might
be supposed the writer intended to indicate, as the actual situa-
tion of the garden, the region watered by that as yet undivided
stream. But when the fact is that no such parent stream has
any existence, none even from which the two rivers designated
by well-known names could have proceeded, while the others,
though now doubtfully recognised by the names under which
they appear in the narrative, were evidently equally well known
PARADISE AND THE FALL.
149
Y
in the writer's day and amongst his people, being probably the
Nile and one of the great rivers of India, but at any rate wholly
unconnected with the other two, it is evident that it can only be
by some poetical fiction, or with a view to some merely allego-
rical and mystical representation, that the writer has imagined
such a situation for his primeval garden, and fixed the site
with such apparent geographical exactness, but with such a
real inconsistency with facts as must wholly withdraw the
situation of Paradise from the sphere of geographical reality.¹
3. The third objection is drawn from the fact that the condi-
tion of mankind which constitutes the penalty is real. But if,
as has been shown, there are strong reasons for thinking that
this was the real and natural condition of mankind prior to and
independently of all transgression, and if it became the penal con-
sequence of transgression only by the moral change which took
place thereby in man himself, causing that this natural condi-
tion, including the necessity of labour and mortality itself under
The author has had sent him a slip from an Indian newspaper, giving the
subjoined explanation of the river of Paradise as contained in a forthcoming work
by Mr. C. A. Rassam, British Vice-Consul at Mosul :-"Taking the word eidh
in the original of Gen. ii. 6, to be Persian, signifying a flood, or flood-tide, and
not a mist, he renders the passage, The flood-tide rose above the ground, and
irrigated all the surface of the land.' By making 'eidhen (Eden) synonymous with
eidh, in spite of the difference in the radicals, for which, however, an ingenious
explanation is given-he abolishes our Eden' altogether. Gen. ii. 8 he reads
as follows:-' And the Lord planted a garden by the tide [of the river] eastwardly,'
or on the east side, and supports this rendering by v. 10 of the same chapter, which
he translates, And a stream [or current] proceeded from the flood-tide to water the
garden, and from thence it supplied four beads,' viz., Pison, Gihon, Hiddekel, and
Paràth, severally identified by the critic with the Karoon, the Sowaib or Howeiza,
the Tigris and the Euphrates. In support of this exegesis, he adduces the fact that
the same phenomenon exists at the present day; for when the tide from the Persian
Gulf flows into the Shattool- Arab-the confluence of the united streams-the water
rises in the four above-named rivers, and therefore may be said to supply, or to be
divided among them.'
It may not be fair to hold Mr. Rassam responsible for an opinion promulgated
in this way, but the opinion itself is an instance of the extremities to which those
who look for a literal interpretation of this passage are driven by the difficulties
which beset them. The word edh or eidh is good Hebrew and Arabic for a vapour,
and it is unwarrantable to resort to a different, and not even a cognate, language,
for a signification more suitable to a theory than the proper Hebrew sense of the
word. The identification of Eden (1) with 7 or 7, than which no words
could be more radically different, is also quite arbitrary. Moreover Eden has a good
Hebrew signification, expressing the delightsomeness of the place, and is frequently
used by the prophets to denote the garden itself, besides being also applied to more
than one real place. The notion of a garden being watered by the salt tide of the
sea, or even the brackish water of an estuary, is quite absurd.
C
150
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
certain conditions, should be regarded as a punishment, which
else it would not have been thought to be, then this representa-
tion becomes evidently another instance in which we are to look
for a moral rather than a physical and literal explanation.
4. The absence of any mark of the author's intention to pre-
sent an allegory instead of a history is next relied on.
But an
allegorist never thinks of giving any such mark distinct from
the representations of the allegory itself. It is the nature of all
allegory to assume the form of an actual history. It is only from
the nature of the particulars related, regarded either severally
or in their connexion as a whole, that the allegorical character
of the narrative is inferred. If the unreality of these particulars,
considered severally or in their combination as a whole, does
not of itself demonstrate the allegorical character of the narra-
tive, then the story may be a fictitious tale designed to instruct
or to amuse, but it cannot be called an allegory which represents
supposed realities in a mystical and unreal form. There are
ample indications in the narrative now under consideration that
it has this allegorical character, indications afforded by the
manifest symbolical and unreal character of many of its par-
ticulars, as already shown at length; and these being sufficiently
perceptible, it is unreasonable to expect that the author should
have given any express intimation that he meant to write.
allegorically.
1 If St. Paul, in Gal. iv. 24, having referred to the history of Sarah and Hagar
and their two sons, had used the words which the English translators have attributed
to him, "which things are an allegory," he would have appeared to treat the story
as not founded in fact, but only invented to foreshadow the doctrine he illustrates by
means of it. His words, however, are very different, denoting not that the original
history was an allegory, but that an allegorical meaning was put upon it :—ärivá čσTIV
ἅτινά ἐστιν
àλλŋyopoúμevo, allegorized, or treated as an allegory. He probably had in view the
allegorical allusion made to the story in the words of Isaiah liv. 1, which he quotes in
the course of his own allegorical interpretation. This is only a development of that
of the prophet, and an extension of it to the casting out of the bondwoman with her
son. The story had been in part allegorized by the prophet. The Judaizing Christians,
who desired to be under the law, had probably been familiar with this application of
it to the two covenants, and as they had so far understood it in this light, he shows
them that, if this mode of interpretation be carried out consistently, it illustrates the
incompatibility of the two systems, and the freedom of Christians from the bondage of
the law, as it existed under the old covenant. The argument was ad hominem, but
the allegorical allusion of Isaiah to the history gave him a certain scriptural authority
for pressing it on those whose mistaken notions he wished to counteract.
PARADISE AND THE FALL.
151
5. The passages in the New Testament in which the history
of the fall is referred to, and in which it is alleged that it
is assumed to be a real history, are next insisted on. But
the reality of the fall has not been disputed, but only the
reality of the circumstances of it, and of the manner of its
occurrence as here represented. We need no proof of the
reality of the fall beyond our own experience of man's sin-
fulness, together with the impossibility of believing that man
was not made upright as he came from the hands of his maker.
A fall from a state of innocence there must have been, a first
transgression, however the account of it given in this passage
may be regarded. One of the New Testament references relied
on is Rom. v. 12. Surely, when the Apostle speaks of those
who had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression,
he does not mean those who had not exactly imitated that
transgression in the eating of the forbidden fruit of a tree.
The similitude was in the nature rather than in the form of the
transgression. Whether he means infants who were subject to
death, notwithstanding their freedom from actual transgression,
as some have supposed; or those who sinned only against the
law written on the heart, the law of nature, while yet no out-
ward law had been communicated, whereas Adam's transgression
is represented to have been against an express commandment, as
others have thought; or, as Grotius thinks, those who had not
committed any grave deliberate sin like Adam's, which in Hosea
vi. 7 is spoken of as a type of the more heinous kinds of trans-
gression, but led comparatively blameless lives, committing
only the sins of infirmity; or else those against whose sin the
specific penalty of death had not been denounced, as in
Adam's case, which is probably the true meaning;-at any
rate the reference is only to the general nature and not the
particular form of Adam's transgression. The reference there-
fore proves nothing as to the Apostle's belief in the reality of
that form as here represented.
Another reference is 2 Cor.
1
1 "But they, like Adam, have transgressed the covenant."
152
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
xi. 3, where St. Paul speaks of the serpent having tempted Eve.
But Hengstenberg forgets that though he maintains there was
a real serpent, yet he also expressly maintains that the serpent
was not the real tempter. He forgets also the passages in the
Apocalypse, where the serpent is identified with the devil him-
self. Doubtless there was a real temptation, and the agency of
Satan in that temptation is not affected as a matter of fact by
his being represented under the symbol of a serpent in this
narrative. And even if St. Paul had entertained this symbolical
view of the narrative, he was not on that account the less likely
to refer to it in its seeming historical character, than to trans-
late the symbols into what they were intended to represent.
The characters in a fable or parable are commonly referred
to as real persons, even though the parable or fable veils no
historical events at all, but only exemplifies a moral or principle
under the form of an historical tale. The third passage referred
to is 1 Tim. ii. 13, 14. This, undoubtedly, assumes the reality
of the difference in the manner in which the woman was brought
into transgression from that in which the man is represented as
having been led into sin; and the Apostle grounds the impro-
priety of the woman's usurping authority over the man partly on
this difference, and partly on the priority of the man's formation
as represented in Gen. ii. But then the mere circumstance of
priority in time would not prove the superiority of the man to
the woman as regards authority. On the contrary, in the first
chapter, man is formed last of all the living creatures and yet
receives authority to rule over all. It is the design of the
woman's formation, represented as taking place after that of the
man, to supply a want in his condition, her formation to be a help
meet for the man, and the manifest supplemental and secondary
character of her relation to the man, and not the circumstance of
her later formation, that is the true reason why she should not
usurp authority over the man. And hence, even in the Apostle's
argument, this circumstance of later formation must have been
adduced only as symbolizing or representing the supplemental and
1
PARADISE AND THE FALL.
153
secondary relation of the woman to the man; and, standing as the
symbol of a real inferiority of relation, its citation by the Apostle
as such, does not make it less symbolical or more real in the
original document, whatever may have been the actual fact in re-
gard to the time of the woman's formation relatively to that of
the man's. And then, as regards the circumstance that the woman
in her temptation was deceived, as represented in the Mosaic
narrative, while the man, at the woman's instigation, sinned with
his eyes open, as it were, and without being deceived, this is only
in accordance with the general character of each. The man, how-
ever he may be carried away by the violence of his passions, is
ordinarily not so liable to be deceived in his times of temp-
tation, as the woman in her's. The Apostle's design was not
to measure the comparative guilt of the transgressors, but to
show by this example of the greater liability to be deceived,
the unfitness of the woman to teach or to usurp authority over
the man, whose guilt may notwithstanding be the greater in
proportion as he is the less beguiled. This great characteristic
difference, so often exemplified in the respective temptations
undergone by the two sexes, this greater liability of the woman
to be led into sin by deception, of the man to sin without being
deceived, as well as the fact that the woman should so often,
both intentionally and unintentionally, be the occasion of sin to
the man—dux fœmina facti-is what may well be supposed to
have been exhibited in the case of the first temptation and
transgression. In that instance the woman's inexperience of
evil, which even since has so often been the occasion of her
ruin, would have rendered her the more liable to deception,
while the man, to whom woman had never as yet been a
tempter, would have been more likely to yield to influences
that, with all the subsequent experience of mankind, are still
so powerful for evil as well as for good. That these charac-
teristic peculiarities in the temptation of each were thus
exemplified on the occasion of the fall is doubtless a part of
the historical basis that underlies the account given of that
154
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
event in the Mosaic narrative, and which that narrative was
designed to symbolize. More than this the Apostle's reference
in 1 Tim. ii. 13, 14, does not necessarily imply.
6. The last of Hengstenberg's objections is the perplexity,
uncertainty, and arbitrariness of the allegorical interpreters,
when they proceed to display the underlying truth, which in
the case of a designed allegory should be so manifest that it
could not be mistaken. Now if the whole were an apologue
without any historical basis whatever, the moral lessons to be
derived from it would be intelligible enough; certainly as
intelligible as in any of the parables of Holy Scripture. But
plainly there is an historical basis sufficiently manifest underlying
this narrative, which is not a mere fable to illustrate moral
principles, but an allegorical representation of important facts.
The creation of the first human pair; the provision of all things
needful for their temporal wants; the state of moral probation
in which they were placed; their first innocence and subsequent
temptation and fall; the manner of that temptation as regards
the mental process by which it issued in transgression; the
consequences of lost innocence, such as shame and the con-
version of the natural circumstances of man's condition into
punishment by the change in his own moral nature; the needful
contest to be ever maintained with the principles of evil, issuing
finally in a promised triumph over them; all these particulars
are presented in a series of representations, the meanings of which
are by no means obscure, and afford no occasion for any arbi-
trariness in their explanation. The narrative being grounded
on two grand historical realities, the creation and the fall, both
alike unquestionable verities, it is reasonable to suppose that
the other particulars implied in it have a foundation in fact
also, such as the original creation of a single pair, and the
unity of the human race as derived from them, the woman
being the mother of all living and herself bone of the man's
bones, and flesh of his flesh. Under any mode of interpre-
tation, the special meaning of the seed of the woman bruising
OFFSPRING OF FALLEN MAN.
155
the serpent's head would have been missed, until the manner of
Christ's birth gave significance to a representation which pre-
viously could only be understood in a very vague and general
manner. There is nothing, however, uncertain or arbitrary in
the explanations which arise with sufficient readiness from the
passage itself. Enough of the historical facts are patent, to
suffice for all the moral and religious uses of such a narrative;
nothing is told merely to gratify curiosity. The details that
could only serve this end are withdrawn behind the veil of a
mystical mode of representation. Such details of historical
circumstance not being within the sphere of the writer's ob-
servation, or of his ordinary means of information, could only
be known by a direct and immediate revelation, while yet, not
being needful for any religious use, they are matters in regard
to which revelation is not to be expected. The alternative of
such a revelation of actual details would be the presenting the
events of moral significance under the veil of a mystical repre-
sentation, which should contain in itself sufficiently distinct indi-
cations of the symbolical character of that representation, and
of which the import should be sufficiently intelligible for all
the moral and religious uses of such a narrative. These con-
ditions are beautifully and strikingly fulfilled in these chapters,
the import of which has now been discussed.
II. OFFSPRING OF FALLEN MAN.
I. The fourth chapter is connected with the passage which has
just been considered, not only as it forms with it one of what,
as will be hereafter shown, constitute the larger organic
divisions of the entire book, but also as being its natural
sequel. It commences without prefatory notice, and carries
on the names, Adam, Eve, and Eden from the preceding
chapters, without explanation or remark of any kind. But
though the fourth chapter is thus closely connected with that
preceding passage, they are at the same time distinguished
156
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
from one another in a very marked and striking manner, not
only by the completeness and self-contained character of the
previous narrative, which closes with the final expulsion of
the guilty pair from the garden of Eden, but also by the form
and structure of the one as compared with that of the other.
The poetical character and form of the earlier part is now
entirely dropped, and the versification which distinguished
it disappears, except in the brief snatch of early song attributed
near the close of the chapter to Lamech, the entire tone and
and character, except in that one instance, being quite prosaic.
Then the compound name Jehovah Elohim, by which God
is designated in the preceding passage, and which by the fre-
quent repetition in that form of combination, unusual in the
Hebrew copies, constituted a very marked characteristic, is now
entirely dropped, and the name Jehovah by itself appears in its
stead, except in one instance where Elohim is employed. The
cause of the use of Elohim in this one instance is probably to be
found in an implied contrast between divine and human agency,
a contrast which, it will hereafter be seen, has in very many
instances occasioned the use of the generic Elohim, rather than
that of a proper and personal name. In the present case,
"She called his name Seth, for Elohim hath appointed me
another seed, instead of Abel, whom Cain slew,"—the implied
contrast is this:-man had slain one son, God has given another
in his place. But whatever may have occasioned this single
variation, the marked difference between this chapter and
the preceding passage in the use of the names by which the
divine Being is designated, joined with the difference of cha-
racter between this prosaic and the other highly poetical
passage, suffices to distinguish this as a separate document to
be viewed by itself, and not as part and parcel with the other.
This being the case, there is no necessity of applying to
the present passage the same principle of interpretation, which
the unity and consistency in form and character that pervaded
the former rendered it obligatory to apply to it with unde-
OFFSPRING OF FALLEN MAN.
157
viating uniformity. There is nothing, moreover, in the subject
matter of the fourth chapter, as there was in the previous
passage, to indicate that it should not be taken in a strictly
literal and historical acceptation. The fact, indeed, that the
proper names are in many cases clearly significant, and for
the most part significant of circumstances in the subsequent
history of the persons and places they are used to designate,
might seem to favour the application of an allegorical mode
of interpretation to this, as well as to the previous passage.
Thus if the name Cain has its appropriateness in the acquisition
by Eve of her firstborn son, that of Abel-unsuited to the joy
that a man is born into the world, and to the hopes that nature
prompts a mother to entertain of the future prosperity of a new
born child—has all its appropriateness in the mournful character
of the subsequent history of him, who yet is represented as
receiving the name at his birth. Again, the land of Nod,
in which Cain becomes a fugitive and a vagabond, is so called
apparently from this very circumstance of Cain's wandering
therein.¹ If the city which Cain built was called after his son
Enoch, or rather Chanoch, this name itself is significant of the
inauguration or dedication of a building or a city. Jabal is
significant of the wandering life of one that was the father
of all such as live in tents and have cattle.³ So also is the
name of his brother Jubal derived from Jobel, a wind instru-
ment, whence comes the well-known term jubilee. The first
part of Tubal-cain signifies the dross of brass or iron in Persian,
and the latter part, Cain, a smith both in Arabic and Persian,
the former in like manner having had probably at one time
its Shemitic representative. But then these names, being
all but this one, and perhaps this also, of purely Shemitic
origin, must, if the names of real persons, be taken merely
to represent more ancient names now lost, which may not have
had the like ex post facto significance.
17, vagari, Ti vagatio, exilium, 2 vagus.
2 inaugurari, initiare.
3
bire, fluitare.
158
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
It is also true that the quarrel between Cain and Abel might
be supposed to symbolize the opposition between the two
classes into which the earliest races of men would naturally
resolve themselves, the pastoral and the agricultural. The
interests of these classes would be opposite, and the more rapid
degeneracy of the agricultural would be contrasted with the
comparative innocence of the pastoral. And then the assigning
of the building of cities and the invention of arts to the de-
scendants of Cain might be supposed merely to indicate that
agriculture was the parent of an advanced civilisation, while
the habits of pastoral life, which least draws out the inventive
faculties, and least brings men into combination and mutual
dependence, gave no encouragement to such progress in civili-
sation. Still, after explaining these particulars in this way,
there would yet remain some particulars in this chapter, the
explanation of which must under such a principle of interpreta-
tion be rather arbitrary. Particulars not serving merely to fill
up the picture, and not yielding a natural signification on the
supposition of a parabolic character, are certainly an indication
of some weight that a narrative is not intended to be taken
in such an acceptation. In the present case, however, the
particulars needed to fill up the picture might have been taken
from the prevalent historical traditions, from whatever source
those traditions were derived, or however they may have
originated. Such traditions, accepted for what they were
worth, would have afforded a natural ground work on which
to build an embodiment representing the moral and social
conditions of mankind in the earliest period. And if the pre-
ceding passage has been justly treated in the foregoing dis-
cussion, the connexion of this with it as its proper sequel
would favour, though it does not necessitate, a similar accepta-
tion in this case.
II. There are a few particulars in this chapter on the
import of which some remarks will not be amiss. The first
of these to be noticed is the exclamation of Eve on the occasion
OFFSPRING OF FALLEN MAN.
159
אֶת־יְהוָה
of the birth of Cain, "I have gotten a man from Jehovah,'
1. A disposition has prevailed amongst certain divines
to interpret these words as indicating an impression on the
mind of Eve that her newborn son was himself Jehovah. This
supposition has been grounded on the use of the particle
as a sign of the accusative. This is alleged to be employed
here to connect Jehovah in apposition with the word man,
as if she had said, "I have gotten a man, even Jehovah."
Amongst others, so respectable a writer as the late Dr. Pye
Smith, in his "Scripture Testimonies to the Messiah," gave
his adherence to this interpretation. To make it possible
to suppose that Eve had imagined this to be the nature of
the son she had just borne, it is necessary to assume that
she not merely regarded this son as the promised seed that
should bruise the serpent's head, but also that she had under-
stood the great Christian doctrine of the divine incarnation, a
doctrine which yet, notwithstanding the many prophetic
indications of it subsequently given, remained ever after un-
known to the world until its accomplishment in the person
of our blessed Lord. Such an assumption as this, in the
absence of all evidence, is monstrous. That this passage affords
no proof of it is certain. For though it is true that the particle
♫ would admit of being taken to express this connexion, and
would perhaps be more naturally so taken if it yielded a pro-
bable or rational sense, yet it is not necessarily to be so under-
stood; and in the absence of such necessity it is allowable to
take the probability of the meaning into consideration. There
are abundant instances where the particle has the force of a
preposition, being used in an indefinite manner to indicate
relations of every kind, when the case itself sufficiently shows
the nature of the relation intended to be expressed. An in-
stance like that now under consideration exists in Gen. xlix. 25,
"From the God of thy father, and he shall help thee,
And from Shaddai, and he shall bless thee."
""
-: מֵאֵל is used as the parallel and equivalent of אֶת שַׁדַּי where
160
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
The conjunction here prefixed to shows that it must be
regarded as a preposition, though if that were absent it might
be supposed to indicate simple apposition. Another instance is
to be found in Exod. ix. 29, 33, where n is used
in expressing that Moses went from the city. The use as a
mere sign of the accusative is no doubt the most frequent, and
should therefore be followed in preference, if it afforded a pro-
bable sense.
But here is just one of the cases where a different
relation is more naturally indicated; while nothing but the
absence of any instance in which the particle is used to denote
any other case but the accusative, or else to mark any other
relation than simple apposition, would justify its being under-
stood here in a sense which would yield so improbable a mean-
ing as that in question. A doctrine which is sought to be
upheld by pressing into its service such support as this suffers
more from the impression which is thus produced that it stands
in need of such forced assistance, than it can possibly gain by
the fancied countenance it may derive from so questionable an
interpretation, as this must after all be regarded even by those
who are favourable to its adoption.
III. The divine origin and institution of animal sacrifice has
been inferred by many from the preference of Abel's offering
coupled with the words of the Lord to Cain, "Sin lieth at the
door," in which sin is supposed to stand for a sin-offering. All
that can be said in favour of this view may be seen in Archbishop
Magee's work on the Atonement. But after all that has been
said, the inference that it was a positive institution of divine
origin at its first observance is rather more than the sacred
narrative will warrant. It is evidently the writer's object
to trace back the practice to the very earliest times of man's
fallen state. But whether that proceeded from God's direct
appointment, or was the spontaneous growth of the human
mind, we are not informed. It is not even stated that Abel's
offering was slain, the word applied to both Cain's and Abel's
offerings being Mincha, the term which in the law of Moses
OFFSPRING OF FALLEN MAN.
161
ļ
more properly denotes the meat offering or drink offering,
as distinguished from burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin.
The LXX. indeed apply the word Ovcía to Abel's offering,
but they use it also of Cain's, and therefore it is plainly
employed in a more general sense than that which it literally
bears. It is rightly remarked by Archbishop Magee that the
fat of his flock offered by Abel does not mean the fat as dis-
tinguished from the other parts of the animal offered which
were not consumed by fire, but taken in connexion with the
firstlings means the fattest of them. In the epistle to the
Hebrews indeed it is said that Abel offered πλείονα θυσίαν,
rendered "a more excellent sacrifice" in the English Version,
but properly signifying a sacrifice excelling in number or
quantity. But then it was by faith he did this, and it was the
faith itself that rendered the offering larger. Each brings the
best of what he has to offer, but faith is superadded in one case,
and this renders that offering Telova. It is true an argument
has been built on this mention of Abel's faith, as implying some
divine promise on which Abel proceeded in bringing the sort
of offering he did. But this is not necessarily implied. The
preceding instance of faith in Heb. xi. is that which consists
in the belief that the world was made by the word of God, and
in the following instance it is said, in reference to Enoch's faith,
that "he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and is a
rewarder of them that diligently seek him." The commenda-
tion therefore of Abel's faith by no means implies that he acted
in conformity with a divinely appointed means of obtaining
1 St. Mark xii. 33-τὸ ἀγαπᾶν κ.τ.λ. πλεῖόν ἐστι πάντων τῶν ὁλοκαυμάτων καὶ
Tŵv Ovσiôv--affords an instance in which a moral act or affection by itself is thus
represented as greater in quantity than material offerings, greater not merely than
one, but than all such offerings together. The idea of quantity which added value to
the material offering is transferred to the moral act to express its greater excellence.
The word everúpioev by which Theodotion translates that which is used to express
God's acceptance of Abel's sacrifice has nothing to justify it in the present Hebrew.
He probably imported the idea into this passage from the well-known cases in which
the divine acceptance of a sacrifice was signified by fire from heaven that consumed
the offering. As a translation of the existing text, or of any possible various reading,
it is manifestly incorrect, because, as Keil observes, "Abel no less than the offering
is governed as its object by the expression looked upon,', of the Hebrew
text."
11
162
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
acceptance with God. Neither does the expression in v. 7,
"Sin lieth at the door," sustain the inference that this was a
divinely appointed rite. The metonymical use of sin for sin-
offering is supposed to be implied by the use of the word
in the masculine, while N with which it should agree is
feminine, the participle being, as it is said, in the gender of the
animal for which the substantive stands, according to a well-
known manner of construction. Whatever may be the weight
of this construction in the present case, it derives no addition
from the instances of a supposed similar nature adduced by
Magee, in which he says the pronoun in its masculine form
is made to agree with the feminine standing for a sin-
offering, while no such usage exists where this word simply
means sin. For in all the cases specified, Exod. xxix. 14, Lev.
iv. 21, 24, v. 9, the pronoun is not connected with this word at
all, but refers to the animal which constituted the offering
mentioned just before. Keil accounts for the difference of
gender by supposing that "the feminine is construed
as a masculine, because, with evident allusion to the serpent,
sin is personified as a wild beast, lurking at the door of the
human heart, and eagerly desiring to devour his soul (1 Peter
v. 8)." He also makes the reference in the succeeding clause
to be to this personified sin, and not to Abel:-"Its desire is
to thee (directed towards thee); but thou shouldest rule over
it." In favour of this is the fact that in God's words to Cain
there has been no previous mention whatever of his brother, to
justify the reference of the pronouns to him. If this view of
the words of Jehovah to Cain be correct, the connecting this
chapter with the preceding passage in a like manner of inter-
pretation derives from it some measure of support. The mean-
ing, however, is extremely doubtful. The Alexandrian trans-
lators at any rate did not understand a sin offering or the
word "sin" as a substantive at all. Their translation, though
in accordance with the text, implies an entirely different vocali-
sation: οὐκ ἐὰν ὀρθῶς προσενέγκῃς, ὀρθῶς δὲ μὴ διέλῃς, ἥμαρτες ;
C
OFFSPRING OF FALLEN MAN.
163
noúxaσov, "If thou hast offered rightly, but hast not divided
ἡσύχασον,
rightly, hast thou not sinned? Keep quiet." They must have
as infinitives, ND as second sing.
pret., and as an imperative: "If thou hast done well to
offer, and if thou hast not done well to divide, hast thou not
sinned? Keep quiet." We may suppose that they under-
stood by not dividing rightly, not sharing his goods with
others; and perhaps St. John had this interpretation in his
mind when he said that Cain slew his brother because his own
works were evil and his brother's good. While therefore this
passage teaches the early existence of oblation and sacrifice in
divine worship, and God's acceptance of an animal oblation,
it is far from being as clear in favour of the divine origin
of the institution as some think. But even if we supposed that
it originated in some instinct of the human mind, such instincts
proceed from God, and there would be nothing improbable in
the supposition that God adopted it into the institutions of the
law of Moses, or recognised it in its earlier observance. This
supposition would not involve the further one that the atone-
ment offered by Christ was grounded on such a natural usage
of men.
The sacrifice of Christ is a thing so essentially dif-
ferent, so singular and distinct in every particular, except this
one of the shedding of blood, that it can never be supposed to
have originated in the previous practice, however certain obscure
analogies may be noticed between them. In all other sacrifices
the worshipper offered from himself some gift that was supposed
to render the deity propitious, whether by its own worth, or in
token of something better. In the case of the sacrifice of Christ,
the offering is not brought by the worshipper to propitiate the
deity, but, because God was already propitious, he himself pro-
vided the inaoτýptov, such as might afford a suitable demonstra-
tion on his part of his righteous displeasure against sin, and at
the same time admit of mercy being extended to the sinner,—
that he might be righteous as not appearing indifferent to
human guilt, and yet be the justifier of sinful man.
לפתח and שְׂאֵת read
164
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
IV. In the apprehension expressed by Cain that any one
who should find him would slay him, the natural instinct of the
murderer, that tells him his life is forfeited to society, is well
brought out. On the other hand, the remission of the capital
punishment in this the earliest instance of the crime would tend
to abate the fierceness of vengeance, in a state of society in
which the avenger of blood was the relative or friend of the
murdered person, and for the restraint of whose vindictiveness
the law of Moses was about to provide the institution of the
cities of refuge, by means of which the homicide who could
escape to one of them was sure at least of a fair trial. The
sentence pronounced on Cain, that when he tilled the ground it
should not yield its strength, would be verified naturally by
the inefficient labour of a disheartened and restless fugitive, if
Cain be regarded in his individual capacity. The prevalence
of strife and bloodshed in a community, which might be
supposed to be symbolized in this narrative, would have
a like tendency; the sword and the ploughshare cannot be
employed simultaneously with success. The statement of the
English Version, that God set a mark upon Cain, is not
the only meaning that the original can have, nor, indeed,
is it the most correct rendering, considering the preposition
used, not. The meaning is that God gave him a sign or
oath (ix), appointed something, like the rainbow afterwards,
as a token of his promise that no one should slay him. The
rendering of the LXX. will bear this sense: OeTO KÚρLOS & DEÒS
σημεῖον τῷ Καϊν, τοῦ μὴ ἀνελεῖν αὐτὸν πάντα τὸν εὑρίσκοντα
autóv. And it is the most probable; a mark set upon Cain,
such as some personal peculiarity, would rather tend to increase
the apprehended danger, as it would serve as a mark of identi-
fication, and would draw the notice of people upon him.
While the mention of the remission of the capital punish-
ment in the case of this first instance of the crime of murder
would tend to aid the merciful provisions of the law of Moses
for restraining the vindictiveness of the avenger of blood, it
OFFSPRING OF FALLEN MAN.
651
seems to have been partly with a view to bringing out, with
the like intention, the difference between wilful murder and the
less guilty forms of homicide, that the genealogical account
of Cain's descendants is brought down to Lamech and his im-
mediate family, and then ceases.
That the writer availed him-
self of an existing tradition may be gathered from the snatch
of seemingly ancient song, in which Lamech's words are given,
so different in their style from the prosaic tone of the other
parts of this narrative :-
"Hear my voice, ye wives of Lamech,
Hearken unto my speech;
I have slain a man for my wound,
A young man for my hurt.
If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold,
So Lamech seventy and seven."
The greater vengeance, which Lamech expects to be taken on
the person who should slay him in consequence of the homicide.
he had committed, plainly indicates that his crime was of a less
guilty kind; and perhaps the expressions "for my wound,"
and "for my hurt," may have been intended to signify the
occasion of the homicide, not its injurious consequences to
himself. They may be taken to intimate that he had been
himself attacked and wounded, and in the fray had slain his
adversary.¹ While the text of the English Version follows the
LXX. and the Vulgate in giving to the preposition? here used
a consequential meaning, its marginal rendering is "in my
hurt," and "in my wounding." Lev. xix. 28, "Cuttings in
your flesh for the dead," that is, "on account of the dead;"
Num. vi. 7, "Unclean for his father or for his mother, or for
his brother, or for his sister, when they die," that is, unclean
1 So Bp. Lowth, De Sacra Poesi Hebræorum, Præl. iv., translates:-Propter
vulnus mihi inflictum, propter plagas mihi impositas. He also gives as Houbigant's
translation:
Ego virum vulneratus occidi
Juvenem plagâ affectus.
He adds,-Est Lamechi effatum apologia pro homicidio perpetrato sui defendendi
causâ contra hominem hostiliter ipsum invadentem, et vim, plagas, vulnera inferen-
tem: et opponitur hujusmodi homicidium, sub moderamine inculpata tutelæ com-
missum, voluntario et inexcusabili Caini parricidio.
166
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
by reason of them, because of the touch of their dead bodies;
Josh. ix. 9, "From a very far country thy servants are come
because of” (lit. ↳ for) "the name of the Lord,” may be adduced
as instances in which this preposition denotes the cause.¹ This
representation of the less guilty character of some forms of
homicide, and of the exemption of the persons who may have
committed them from capital punishment, would be of greater
moment as qualifying the unlimited sentence in chap. ix,
"Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed,"
and was the more needful for the instruction of those for whom
it was written, inasmuch as it was the friend of the slain person
who was charged with the punishment of the homicide.
V. It is a characteristic of this chapter to trace back to the
earliest days of the world's history the origin of institutions,
customs, and practices prevalent in the world. Thus it notices
the early separation of men into the agricultural and pastoral
classes, and derives from the former the aggregation of men in
cities and the invention of arts. And in the way in which the
inventors of arts are described, as the fathers of those that
practice them, we notice a familiarity, such as might be expected
in the traditionary author of this book, with Egyptian customs,
all trades and occupations having been hereditary in ancient
Egypt. The worship of God by oblation and sacrifice at stated
periodical times, "at the end of days," is also attributed to the
firstborn of mankind; and if it is left in doubt whether it was
of direct institution and appointment by God, the divine acknow-
ledgement and acceptance of it is plainly taught. If the latter
part of v. 7 be understood as referring to Abel, which it pro-
bably does, the authority of the firstborn and the rights of
¹ It is unnecessary to justify, as Bishop Lowth does, the passive relation here
expressed by the pronominal affix "my." The remark of Kimchi, on which he relies,
that the affixes to nouns have either an active or a passive sense, would be of moment
if the nouns denoted actions. But here they signify something suffered, and the
passive relation expressed by the pronominal affixes is the natural one. And, indeed,
whether Lamech's hurt and wound be taken as the cause or the effect of the homicide,
the passive relation must be understood here. The idea of a wound and hurt inflicted
by Lamech would strain both the nouns and the prepositions, besides giving a very
weak meaning to the verses.
OFFSPRING OF FALLEN MAN.
167
primogeniture receive also the divine recognition in the history
of these earliest days, a form of expressing this being used exactly
similar to the words expressive of the authority of the husband
over the wife in iii. 16:-"Unto thee shall be his desire and thou
shalt rule over him." Whether this has sprung from an in-
stinct of human nature, or has arisen from the practical advan-
tage which seniority gives to the eldest born of a family,
whereby the younger members find themselves from the dawn
of consciousness in a position of practical inferiority, and have
become habituated to this in the growth of all their feelings
and conceptions, the inferiority has its foundation in nature,
and so must be regarded as having the divine approval which
is implied in the words of the Lord to Cain.
As institutions, customs and arts are thus traced back, so are
certain crimes and abuses. The shedding of blood in its more
guilty form, with the natural and instinctive feeling of appre-
hension that the murderer should be slain in turn, is first ex-
hibited; and then the less guilty forms of homicide, with the
expectation of a greater exemption in such cases from the severer
penalty, are also presented to our view. Another evil, namely
that of polygamy, is also noticed. It was not the design of the
Hebrew legislator absolutely to condemn or prohibit this abuse;
but neither was it his purpose to approve or encourage it.
Hence while in chap. ii. the divine institution of marriage
plainly contemplates the union of one man with one woman,
the first instance of a departure from this the original design is
presented to us amongst the degenerated descendants of the
guilty Cain, and not until after the interval of several gene-
rations.
Another particular supposed by some to be traced back to its
origin is that which is understood to be expressed in the con-
cluding words of the chapter, rendered in our English Version
“Then began men to call upon the name of the Lord." There
has been much diversity of opinion, however, as to the meaning
1
אז הוּחַל לִקְרֹא בְּשֵׁם יְהוָה:
168
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
of this sentence. a. That it does not mean that the name Jehovah,
as the proper name of God, whether totidem literis, or as repre-
senting some earlier and now lost name of God, was for the
first time adopted at the period specified seems clear, as the
writer would scarcely, if he had intended so soon to state this,
have put the name into the mouth of Eve at the commencement
of the chapter, especially when he had observed dramatic pro-
priety in not letting the interlocutors of chap. iii. use the name,
owing to the fact that the tempter was one of them. b. Neither
can it be supposed that he meant to intimate that the invocation
of God in divine worship then commenced. The contrary is
implied in the references to the worship of God in the earlier
part of the chapter. c. It cannot signify that now the name
Jehovah came to be used, as it was in later times, as supplying
a component in the formation of the proper names of men.
None of the proper names of this early period show any trace
of such a component. d. Some have suggested that the words
may signify that men began to be called by the name of
Jehovah, with reference to the designation "sons of God" in
vi. 2, 4. But the expressions are of very different import.
"Sons of Elohim," would describe a character, but "Sons of
Jehovah" would denote personal sonship, by birth or adoption.
e. The adoption of the name of God, by way of assuming divine
honours, would scarcely have been expressed in so indirect and
ambiguous a manner, even if there existed the least reason to
suppose that the attempt to usurp the honour due to God was
meant to be ascribed to so early a period in the history of man-
kind. Nor would the proper name Jehovah be that used in such
a statement, if it were intended to be made. Those who assumed
divine honours, or to whom they were paid by men, were called
by some name proper to themselves, and were regarded as dis-
tinct from some one supreme being to whom such a name as
Jehovah would belong. f. The Hiphil of the verb being
sometimes used in the sense of profane, the passive form of this
conjugation here used has been supposed by some to be em-
OFFSPRING OF FALLEN MAN.
169
ployed in the same signification. The meaning would either be
that the calling by the name of Jehovah was profaned by the
ascription of that name to idols or false gods, or more simply
that the calling on the name of Jehovah, in the sense of using
it profanely, became prevalent. That this would fall in with
the tracing of other offences and moral abuses to their first rise
throughout this passage is in its favour; and the objection that
when the verb has this signification it takes a noun and not an
infinitive after it, as urged in Poole's Synopsis, is quite ground-
less, as in this case the form is passive and the verb is used im-
personally, in which manner of use it is properly followed by
an infinitive. g. But while men have been looking for remote
and recondite significations, a much more simple explanation
has been overlooked. As at the birth of Cain an acknowledge-
ment of the goodness of Jehovah was made, and again at the
birth of Seth God was thanked for the appointment of another
son in the place of Abel, so in like manner at the birth of Enos
the name of Jehovah was invoked. The verb is impersonal and
the English Version supplies men as the subject, in making it
active and personal. Instead of men, it should be they or he;
either Seth alone or Seth and his household then began,
namely when Enos was born, to call on the name of Jehovah,
either to invoke his blessing or acknowledge his goodness.
Both the LXX. and the Vulgate translate in the singular, the
latter having iste cœpit, and the former ovтos λπɩσεν, he had
confidence to call on the name of the Lord. This is perhaps
because, as Schleusner suggests, the LXX. read in from ni,
speravit. The pronouns, however, in both these versions appear
to refer to Enos rather than to Seth, and thus, to describe the
piety of Enos would according to them have been the design
of the writer, instead of that manifested by Seth at the birth of
his son.
VI. On an entire review of this chapter, it appears that,
if the form and manner of narration, as well as some of the
particulars specified, would not justify, or at any rate enforce the
170
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
application of the same mode of interpretation that has been
applied to the former passages, it is at least evident that in
the selection of the particulars to be related the author had
their plainly moral and religious use in view, rather than their
historical import, what serves the general purposes of the
history being sufficiently given in the sequel. Even the men-
tion of the first inventors of the arts of civilisation, and of the
first building of a city, is not without its moral scope. The
aggregation of men in cities is more conducive to civilisation
than to morals, and there is a moral lesson to be derived from
the compatibility of material progress and the discovery of
useful and ornamental arts with a simultaneous moral degene-
racy. Such a lesson could not fail to be of use to the children
of Israel, who found themselves surrounded by nations, such as
the Egyptians in particular, far surpassing them in material
advantages and intellectual progress, but sunk in idolatry and
in the worst forms of moral degradation and sin.
The introduction of the proper names of persons who merely
hold a place in the order of genealogical descent, such as those
between Enoch and Lamech, and afterwards Naamah the
daughter of Lamech, is to be accounted for in the same way
as the fragment of ancient poetry relating to Lamech's homicide.
The peculiarity of this fragment, so much out of character
with the general prosaic style of the chapter, shows that it was
probably derived by the writer from some previously existing
source. The same was probably the case with the genealogy
and the historical particulars introduced into it. These may
have been taken from some existing document, or some tra-
ditionary narrative familiar by frequent recitation may have
been adopted by the writer, and embodied for its moral uses
in this preliminary part of his work.
This whole discussion will receive an apt peroration in the
subjoined passage from Dr. Hannah's Bampton Lecture for
1863:1-
1 Lect. v., p. 164, 5.
OFFSPRING OF FALLEN MAN.
171
"If we are asked whether we resign the historical reality
of the beginning of Genesis, we answer, that we resign nothing
but a deeply seated misapprehension, which has confounded
records of a different order, and obliterated the distinction
between theology and history, by transferring the conditions
of the one to the other. The first step in what may be
technically called the narrative of history is taken at the
beginning of the fifth chapter of the book of Genesis, in
the words, 'This is the book of the generations of Adam;'
words which are followed by the briefest possible summary
of the previous account of creation, and then by the order of a
lineage, and the regular chronicle of dates and ages. To this
historical commencement part of the fourth chapter has been
guiding our thoughts, but with that and some other minor
exceptions, the first four chapters are rather theological than
historical; they belong to the head of pure revelation, rather
than to that of ordinary narrative. They embody matter which
no conjecture could have reached, which no tradition could have
furnished. They unfold, in such order as God judged to be
the fittest, the fundamental truths about God's purpose and
God's workings in creation; and about the innocence, the sin,
and the fall of man.”
1
To this it seems only necessary to add that though frequently
during the preceding discussion of the earlier chapters of
Genesis the term "non-historical" has been applied to them,
it will yet have been observed that it is used only in reference
to the manner in which the several particulars have been repre-
sented, while a strictly historical basis underlies the whole. This
has been pointed out with sufficient fulness as regards the second
document. In the case of the first also it has been seen that the
creation of the world in a totality capable of being resolved
into six general classes of creatures-the formation of which as
severally conceived by us had a real and separate relation to
time, and is truly assigned to six days, several at least in con-
1 “Gen. iv. 17–22, 25, 26.”
172
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
ception, and perhaps partially distinct in fact also, while the
narrative does not even verbally assert the order of succession
specified to have been the order of temporal succession-is
truly historical. The anthropomorphism which ascribes words
to God, and the air of an order of temporal succession which
the narrative at first sight presents, being all that is properly
non-historical in that account of the creation of the material
universe, the applicability of the word to the earlier document
is even still more limited than to that which next succeeds it.
173
A few remarks by way of Appendix are subjoined here on
some of the subsequent accounts contained in this book,
viewed chiefly in their historical and moral aspects.
CHAPTERS V. XI. 10–26.
THE GENEALOGY FROM ADAM TO NOAH, AND FROM
SHEM TO TERAH.
THESE genealogies, as forming parts of a history supposed
to have been divinely revealed, or at any rate protected from
error by divine superintendence guiding its composition, have
been regarded by many as a source of difficulty and an occasion
of doubt. This has arisen partly from the enormous ages
ascribed to the patriarchs, so immensely exceeding the length
of life enjoyed by mankind as far back as all other sources
of information enable us to judge, and partly, in more recent
times, from the very brief period to which they limit the duration
of man's existence on the earth, which all the discoveries of
these later times tend to show has been vastly greater.
Before adverting more particularly to these occasions of
doubt and difficulty, it will be well if we turn our attention
for a few moments to the two genealogies of our blessed Lord
which the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Luke present to our
notice. Of these, that which St. Matthew has given us reckons
fourteen generations from Abraham to David, and the like number
from David to the Captivity and from the Captivity to Christ
respectively. If now we refer to the sources of information
as to the second of these periods which the Evangelist possessed
in the Old Testament, we find no less than four generations
omitted, Ahaziah, Joash and Amaziah after Joram, and Jehoia-
kin between Josias and Jechonias. Then in St. Luke's genea-
G
174
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
logy, which after David touches that of St. Matthew again in
Salathiel, we find in this interval, in which St. Matthew gives
but fourteen generations in one line, and from which he omits
the four above mentioned, no less than twenty successive gene-
rations. This is at least suspicious, though, allowing for possible
differences of age in the parents at the time of the birth of their
sons, the difference of two generations might have existed in
the interval. Then, if we compare the generations between
Salathiel and Christ in the two gospels, we shall find twenty in
St. Luke for the fourteen which are given in the same interval
by St. Matthew, too great a difference to be easily accounted
for. While if we go back to the period preceding David, in
which the two agree, we find only fourteen generations in an
interval in which, in the lines of three different descendants
of Levi, there were eighteen respectively. It is highly probable,
therefore, that all the authorities both of the Old and New Testa-
ments have omitted four generations, perhaps between Obed and
Jesse.¹ As regards the two other periods, however, it is plain
that any omissions in the genealogy of St. Matthew cannot be
ascribed to copyists, inasmuch as the writer himself tells us how
many he reckoned. Whether he shortened the number acci-
dentally, or with design for the sake of symmetry, his first
period having fourteen according to the existing genealogy in
the first book of Chronicles, certain it is that St. Matthew's
genealogy, and perhaps also St. Luke's, is inaccurate. We do
not allow this inaccuracy, however, to discredit in our appre-
hension the historical character of either of these gospels
generally, or to make us doubt that the divine superintendence,
guidance, or influence, which we call inspiration, presided over
their composition. Only we suppose that in a matter where
greater exactness was unnecessary, the writers were permitted
to give these genealogies in such form as agreed with their own
knowledge or wish, arising from whatever source or occasion.
Now if in a matter of so much greater moment as the descent
1 See Hales's Analysis of Chronology, vol. iii., p. 45-7.
THE GENEALOGIES.
175
of our blessed Lord, and in respect to which so much better
means of correct information existed within the reach of the
writers, such inaccuracy gives us no serious anxiety, why should
we expect exactness in a case where it could serve no useful
purpose, in which the sources of ordinary information must
have been so immensely inferior, and where we can conceive
no possible reason why information should have been afforded by
direct revelation from God? We may therefore well conceive that
the writer, anxious to afford his people, at the commencement
of their national history, the gratification of tracing back their
race, as was customary in the annals of other nations, to the
first origin of things and the primeval forefathers of mankind,
adopted such names as existed in surviving traditions, names
having perhaps a foundation in reality or representing the real
names of an earlier dialect, though in fact those who bore them
may have been separated here and there by vast intervals, and by
an indefinite succession of generations.¹ And it is to be observed
that as in course of time names would have become fewer in
the popular traditions, the ages of the individuals reckoned
would have been lengthened in the people's apprehension, in
order to supply what they would consider an adequate period
for the duration of mankind on the earth.
But before we hold the writer of this book responsible for the
ages that are ascribed to the patriarchs, we should be sure that
the ages assigned them, in some one of the forms in which these
genealogies have come down to us, have really proceeded from
him. How little certainty we have in this respect may easily
be seen.
There exist at present three different recensions of
these ages and numbers of years, and they point to a statement
different from them all, but which must have been so unsatis-
factory as to lead to the exercise of editorial judgment or con-
1 As it is, one name exists in the generations of Shem, according to the reading
of the LXX. whom St. Luke follows, namely Cainan the son of Arphaxad and
father of Salah, that is not found in the present Hebrew copies. This, however, is a
matter depending on various reading rather than on a defect in the original sources
of information.
176
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
jecture in bringing them to their present state. As regards the
antediluvian period, we have, besides the present Hebrew form,
that of the LXX., which in the case of six of the generations.
adds a century to the age at the time when the next generation
was begotten, and in one case six years, the subsequent ages
being so much diminished, except in the one instance of the age
of Lamech, as to make the entire ages the same as in the
Hebrew text. The inference from this is that both are derived
from copies agreeing in the total ages, but which had already
diverged in the ages preceding the birth of each next generation,
the readings having been so uncertain as to lead to these
different enumerations at some unknown period. Then the
Samaritan reckoning agrees with the Hebrew in seven instances,
differing from it in two cases in which the Hebrew agrees with
the LXX., and likewise in a third case, in which the difference
between the two latter is only six years, in which instance it
differs from the LXX. also. And the result is that, in regard to
the age of the world at the time of the deluge, we have by the
Hebrew, 1656; by the Samaritan, 1307; and by the LXX.,
2262 years;-a very serious difference in the short age which
they all allow to the world at the time of this event, and show-
ing how uncertain that age must be.
Then, again, in the generations of Shem, both the LXX.
and the Samaritans add a century to the ages at which the six
generations enumerated between Shem and Nahor had arrived
at the time of the birth of their successors, the LXX. adding
further a generation of 130 years between Arphaxad and Salah.
Thus the intervals from the deluge to the birth of Abraham,
according to these several authorities, are 292 years for the
Hebrew, 942 for the Samaritan, and 1072 for the Septuagint,
the difference here also being extremely great between the totals.
The residues also in the case of both the Samaritan and the
LXX. differ in most instances from those in the Hebrew, the
same uniformity in the manner of calculating them not being
observed as in respect to the antediluvian period; and the
SONS OF GOD AND DAUGHTERS OF MEN.
177
Samaritan copies add the total lives, which are omitted by
the others except in the case of Terah, whose entire life is
differently given in each of the three recensions, namely, 205
years by the Hebrew, 145 by the Samaritan, and 250 by the
LXX. It is plain from all this that some great confusion
existed at one period or another in regard to the numerals or
other means originally adopted for expressing these numbers;
and although it would be rash to assert that the evidence that
such great ages were originally assigned to the patriarchs, as all
the present authorities agree in attributing to them, is of no
weight, it is certainly greatly invalidated by the facts as they
now present themselves to our notice. It is to be observed also
that the ages at which sons were born are by no means uniformly
of extravagant length, and that while in the case of the antedi-
luvians, the Samaritan estimates, and next to them, the Hebrew,
are the most reasonable and moderate, in the case of the postdi-
luvians the Hebrew is the most moderate, and comes within limits
not unusual in the present day. It is probable, however, that in
all these matters of number the popular estimate was originally
followed as well as in regard to the number of generations
specified. In regard to the whole matter, the known inaccuracy
of the New Testament genealogies warrants us to allow the
possibility of inaccuracy here also, without invalidating the
general historical character of the book.
CHAPTER VI. 2-4.
THE SONS OF GOD AND DAUGHTERS OF MEN.
THE supposition that angels are intended by the sons of God
in this passage, which at one time was seriously regarded by
fathers and doctors of the Church as a true and rational view of
the writer's meaning, has after a long period of abeyance been
revived of late by some writers, who rely upon this meaning as
an evidence of the mythical character of the entire story of the
deluge, the first occasion of which is traced in the narrative to
12
178
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
the imaginary union of angels and women maintained by these
writers to be here described. Amongst ourselves, Dr. Davidson
and the Bishop of Natal may be instanced as maintaining this
view of the writer's meaning and deducing from it the mythical
character of the entire narrative.
A careful examination of the matter will perhaps result in
showing that no necessity exists for understanding the passage
in this objectionable sense; rather that there is good reason for
regarding this as not the meaning of the writer, and therefore
for thinking that it gives no support to the mythical view of
the narrative grounded on it.
The first argument adduced by Dr. Davidson¹ is that the
expression "sons of God," ", in all other places is
used to designate only angels. And he quotes Ps. xxix. 1,
lxxxix. 7, Job i. 6, ii. 1, xxxviii. 7, and Daniel iii. 25.
Nothing can be more groundless than the assertion that angels
are intended in all these passages. In the two passages in the
Psalms indeed the phrase does not exist at all. The expression
there used is
. The word Elim in the plural form is not
synonymous with Elohim, and is never used like it as a singular
to signify God. The counterpart of Elohim is the singular El,
the plural form denoting either gods or mighty persons.
Gods would be unmeaning in Ps. xxix. 1, "Give unto the Lord,
O ye sons of the mighty ones, give unto the Lord glory and
strength;" and if it be thought that in Ps. lxxxix. 7, “Who
among the sons of the mighty ones can be compared unto the
Lord ?" we might understand the Psalmist to challenge any
comparison between Jehovah and the pretended sons of false
gods, he would yet have been more likely to have spoken
of gods in this connexion than of sons of the gods; while the
sense of the sons of the mighty, which according to Hebrew
usage would denote mighty ones themselves, is more natural in
the mouth of a disbeliever in any other gods than Jehovah.
At any rate, Elim would mean gods, and not God, and angels
1 Introduction, vol. i., p. 191.
אֱלֹהִים
SONS OF GOD AND DAUGHTERS OF MEN.
179
לָהִין
would have place no more than any other mighty beings. In
Daniel iii. 25, in the words "like to a son of God," the Chaldee
cannot be taken to denote an angel. It is not to be
supposed at all that the writer intended to represent Nebuchad-
nezzar as comparing the fourth person he saw in the fire to an
angel according to Jewish conceptions; he must have intended
a divine manifestation according to the conceptions of the
heathen. It is true that in v. 28 Nebuchadnezzar says that
God had "sent his angel and delivered his servants;" but then
angel is there merely equivalent to "messenger," and does not
specially refer to one of the angels properly so called. Then in
Job xxxviii. 7, angels are not intended, as has already been
shown;¹ the morning stars being personified and represented as
singing at their creation, this personification in the first clause is
carried on in the second, and the same stars and other creatures
of God are described as the sons of God and shouting for joy.
There remains then only the mention of the sons of God in Job
i. 6, and ii. 1. It is greatly to be doubted that by sons of God
angels are specifically intended here. It can scarcely be ima-
gined by the most realistic interpreters, that Jehovah actually
held his court, as described, on particular days, and that Satan
amongst others really presented himself there. Plainly this is
a poetical representation, in which the sons of God stand for the
courtiers who surround the throne of a great king, Jehovah,
without any specific character as angels. There is thus no clear
and certain instance of the phrase as denoting angels in par-
ticular, while against these alleged instances may be set the
many instances where the moral signification of servants of God
and partakers of his favour is plainly intended, good men being
described as the sons of God. And if this phrase itself, the
sons of God (), is not thus directly applied, we have
in Hos. i. 10, the kindred one, sons of the living God, -,
the singular form El being commonly used when an adjunct
is subjoined as in this case.
"-
1 P. 11.
180
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
Another argument relied on is that there would be no proper
opposition between the sons of God and daughters of men,
if the sons of God were human beings. There would, however,
still exist a true and proper opposition, only the daughters
of men must be regarded as such in a moral sense, as well as
the sons of God,-women of mere human character and carnal
disposition as opposed to godly women. It is true that
in v. 1 it is said immediately before that daughters were born
to men, where the natural sense is plainly intended. But there
is no contrast there marked, and it is the contrast that gives the
expression a special signification in the next verse which must
be determined by that to which it is opposed. And as even
angels are not sons of God in any more natural sense than men,
and the expression as applied to them would still have a figura-
tive signification, the contrast would still fail as between sons
of God and daughters of men in the natural sense of the latter.
It is said that this view alone accounts for the alleged origin
of the giants. But it is to be observed that the giants, or
Nephilim, that are said to have been in those days, are not
represented as the offspring of the connexions here described.
It is only said that Nephilim existed in those days, and that
although the unhallowed unions, and consequent degeneracy,
had provoked a shortening of human life, still, even after that
physical deterioration, the unions spoken of issued in the pro-
duction of mighty men that were of old, men of renown.
Dr. Davidson says, that the references to the angels that kept
not their first estate in 2 Pet. ii. 4, and in Jude 6, 7, favour his
view. But the reference in these passages to Gen. vi. 2–4
cannot be maintained. In both places it is the punishment
that is most strongly insisted on, the casting down into hell
and delivering into chains and darkness, and the reservation.
to the judgment of the great day. But of this there is not a
word in the book of Genesis. In St. Peter's Epistle the reference
would not have been imagined but for the sequence of the de-
struction of the old world, which is accidental and does not exist
SONS OF GOD AND DAUGHTERS OF MEN.
181
in St. Jude's Epistle, which proceeds immediately to the example
of Sodom and Gomorrah. And in this latter reference the
τούτοις in the clause, τὸν ὅμοιον τούτοις τρόπον ἐκπορνεύσασαι,
does not refer to the angels as some have supposed, but much
more naturally to the nearer antecedent, Sodom and Gomorrah,
being made to agree with these words in the neuter gender, the
Apostle not naming the other cities that were destroyed, but
describing them as guilty of the same fornication as those he
had just named. Plainly the reference here, as in other parti-
culars in both Epistles, and occasionally by St. Paul also, is to
a matter not mentioned expressly in the Old Testament at all.
human race.
Lastly, Dr. Davidson alleges that it is only on this supposi-
tion that any necessity existed for the destruction of the entire
But as the unions mentioned were not universal,
it is hard to see how they could have necessitated the destruc-
tion of the whole race, including the males, who could have had
no part in this sin, as well as their innocent wives and children,
more than any other prevalent evil which might have naturally
tended to a general degeneracy.
Hengstenberg's arguments in favour of the moral signification
are good. Two of them are worth mentioning, in addition to
what has been said. One is, that it was a special object with
the author to guard the children of Israel from forming matri-
monial connexions with the heathen people by whom they were
surrounded, while nothing could serve this object better than
showing the evil consequences of such intermarriages in the old
world. The other point is, that in this passage it is not casual
intercourse between the sons of God and daughters of men that
is mentioned, as might be expected if angels were intended,
but regular marriages, as between people living habitually upon
earth; "they chose them wives."
On the whole, if any natural and literal sense were to be
adopted, such as would favour the notion that the entire narra-
tive is mythical, it should be the acceptation of sons of God, or
rather sons of the gods, as we should then render the words, as
182
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
denoting the children of the gods and goddesses, who, according
to the mythological conceptions which were generally prevalent,
formed connexions with mortal women. But the adoption of
such a notion in the sacred writings of the Israelites, the authors
of which were maintaining a perpetual struggle against idola-
trous tendencies, is not to be imagined; and it is especially in-
conceivable that an ancient document, containing such a story,
could have been embodied by the compilers of the sacred history
of the nation in their compilation, at any of the later times to
which the formation of these writings in their present state is
assigned by the critics who maintain the mythical character
of this narrative,-times when the struggle with idolatry was
at its height.
CHAPTERS VI-IX.
THE DELUGE.
MUCH stress has been laid by those who would treat this
narrative as mythical, or at any rate, non-historical, on the
difficulties of a practical nature that must have attended the
accomplishment of the transactions recorded, if they really
took place. These difficulties the Bishop of Natal and others
have taken much pains to present in their hardest form, and in
the light most unfavourable to the truth of the entire narrative.
Though it may be readily admitted that it is impossible entirely
to free it from difficulties of this kind, yet it is to be re-
membered that like difficulties must to some extent attend on
any narrative of supernatural events, and often do attend
on narratives implying nothing supernatural, for which it is so
reasonable to make allowance, that they are not commonly
regarded as destroying the credit of the history. The estimate
we may form of the extent of these difficulties, as regards the
deluge, must depend on the nature of that event, as general or
local. The supposition of a local deluge would free the narra-
tive at once from some of the most serious physical difficulties,
THE DELUGE.
183
such as that arising from the deficiency of water sufficient to
cover the globe to the height represented in this narrative.
The supposition of an internal cavity in the earth containing
water enough for this purpose may be dismissed as untenable,
though once much relied on; and although there might be
sufficient water to cover the world to the height mentioned,
if there were a general depression of elevations, and a simul-
taneous rise of all depressions, yet any such universal levelling
of the earth, at the time when the deluge is represented to have
taken place, may be also dismissed as inconsistent with the
present physical structure of the surface of the globe.¹ Another
difficulty which may be thus avoided is one much relied on by
the Bishop of Natal, that, namely, which is presented by a hill
in France, consisting of fine volcanic scoria, and of very ancient
date, which would surely have been swept away by the waters
of a deluge. Then, again, though an universal subsidence of
elevations and elevation of depressions, happening simulta-
neously over the whole earth at the period when the deluge is
supposed to have taken place, is not to be thought of, on account
of geological appearances which negative such a supposition, the
same difficulty may not, at least as forcibly, attend the supposi-
tion of such a subsidence and subsequent elevation as would be
sufficient to produce a local inundation of so great an extent as
might satisfy the Biblical narrative, and then to terminate it
and restore the surface to its previous condition. Then, diffi-
culties arising from the size of the ark and the number of its
living occupants, the provision for their support and the tending
of them during the continuance of the deluge, would greatly
vary according to the extent of the basin of the supposed local
"The
1 It is not the want of water sufficient for a general covering of the globe that
would negative the supposition that the deluge was caused by this means.
whole mass of water, including the Atlantic and Pacific, and the smaller oceans,
is perhaps equivalent to a complete coating of the earth's surface, if it were perfectly
smooth, having a thickness of nearly a mile."-Geological Gossip, or Stray Chapters
on Earth and Ocean, by Prof. D. T. Ansted, p. 2. Beds of rock formed during vast
periods of time, after the elevation of heights on which they rest unconformably, may
be instanced as an example of the difficulties to be encountered in maintaining the
supposition of an universal levelling at the time of the Noachic deluge.
184
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
deluge, and the numerousness of the fauna by which it was
inhabited at the time of the event; besides many other circum-
stances which it would be impossible to ascertain.
The universality of the deluge was, indeed, in earlier times
the prevailing notion. The difficulties which the progress of
natural science has occasioned were not felt so forcibly until
these later times; and though the terms used in the narrative,
descriptive of the whole earth, may as naturally signify the
entire merely of the known or inhabited earth, or even
of a particular region, as the entire globe; yet, in the
absence of any reason for adopting the more limited accepta-
tion, one would, of course, take the words without limita-
tion. Still, the idea of a local deluge was entertained before
modern science had raised up objections to the universality
of it so forcible as they are now felt to be. Isaac Voss
maintained the opinion in his treatise De Etate Mundi, and in
our own Church a writer of such unquestioned orthodoxy as
Bishop Stillingfleet strongly advocated it. A few passages from
his Origines Sacræ deserve to be extracted:-"I cannot see
any necessity, from the Scripture, to assert that the flood did
spread itself over all the surface of the earth. That all man-
kind (those in the Ark excepted) were destroyed by it is most
certain, according to the Scriptures. It is evident that the
flood was universal as to mankind; but from thence follows.
no necessity at all of asserting the universality of it as to the
globe of the earth, unless it be sufficiently proved that the
earth was peopled before the flood, which I despair of ever
seeing proved. And what reason can there be to extend the
flood beyond the occasion of it, which was the corruption of
mankind ?—The only probability, then, left for asserting the
universality of the flood as to the globe of the earth is from the
destruction of all living creatures, together with man; now,
though men might not have spread themselves over the whole
earth, yet beasts and creeping things might, which were all
destroyed by the flood.-To what end should there be, not only
THE DELUGE.
185
a note of universality added, but such a particular enumeration
of the several kinds of beasts, creeping things, and fowls, if
they were not all destroyed? To this I answer: I grant, as far
as the flood extended, all these were destroyed; but I see no
reason to extend the destruction of these beyond that compass
and space of the earth where men inhabited, because the
punishment upon the beasts was occasioned by, and could not
but be concomitant with the destruction of mankind; but (the
occasion of the deluge being the sin of man, who was punished
in the beasts that were destroyed for his sake, as well as in
himself,) where the occasion was not, as where there were
animals and no man, there seems no necessity of extending
the flood thither. But to what end then, it will be replied,
did God command Noah, with so much care, to take all kinds
of beasts and birds and living things into the Ark with him,
if all these living creatures were not destroyed by the flood?
I answer, because all these were destroyed wherever the flood.
was. And would there not in this supposition have been a
sufficient reason to preserve living creatures in the Ark for
future propagation, when all other living creatures extant were
in such remote places as would not have been accessible by
them in many generations ?-God saying, "Let the earth bring
forth living creatures" (and that after the waters had divided
some parts of the earth from others, so that there could be no
passage for the cattle, creeping things, and beasts out of one
part into another without the help of man), it seems very
probable that, at least, those parts of the earth which were
thus divided from each other did bring forth these several
living creatures after their kinds, which did after propagate
in those parts without being brought thither by the help of
man. If now this supposition be embraced, by it we presently
clear ourselves of many difficulties concerning the propagation
of animals in the world, and their conservation in the Ark,
which many have been so much to seek satisfaction in. As
how the unknown kind of serpents in Brazil, the slow bellied
186
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
creature of the Indies, and all those species of animals in
the West Indies, should come into the Ark of Noah, or be
conveyed out of it into those countries which are divided from
that continent where the flood was, by so vast an ocean on the
one side, and, at least, so large a tract of land on the other.-
Besides, some kind of animals cannot live out of that parti-
cular clime wherein they are; and there are many sorts of
animals, discovered in America and the adjoining islands,
which have left no remainders of themselves in these parts
of the world. These things at least make that opinion very
probable, which extends the production of animals beyond that
of mankind in the whole world; and that the flood, though it
destroyed all mankind and every living creature within the
compass where mankind inhabited, yet might not extend itself
to those parts and the animals therein, in which men had never
inhabited. And by this means we need not make so many
miracles as some are fain to do about the flood; and all those
difficulties concerning the propagation of animals do of them-
selves vanish and fall to the ground."— Origines Sacræ, B. iii.
ch. iv. sect. 3, 4, pp. 337-339; Ed. 1709.
This notion of a deluge limited to the part of the world
occupied as yet by mankind, is certainly not at variance with,
rather is countenanced by, the important references to the
deluge in the Second Epistle of St. Peter. A glance at a
Concordance will show that in the New Testament the word
Kóσμos, which is of very frequent occurrence, is used quite as
often, if not oftener, in a figurative sense, to denote the world
of mankind, as literally, to signify the material world. If now
we turn to 2 Pet. ii. 5., we read that God "spared not the
old world," apxalos кóσμos, this expression being co-ordinated
with "the angels that sinned," and denoting therefore the
world of men with the exception of the eight that were saved
in the Ark, the world of ungodly men, kóσpos àσeßav, on whom
the deluge was brought. And then in iii. 5, 6. we are told how
"the heavens were of old, and the earth" è daтos kai di'
ισ
C
THE DELUGE.
187
ὕδατος συνεστῶσα, τῷ τοῦ θεοῦ λόγῳ, δι᾽ ὧν ὁ τοτε κόσμος ὕδατι
κατακλυσθεὶς ἀπώλετο. The antecedent of the relative in this
latter clause can only be the heavens and the earth, by which,
of
namely through the rain from the one, and breaking up
the fountains of the other, "the world that then was being
overflowed with water perished." This Kóσμos standing thus
distinguished from the heavens and the earth denotes, as in
the former passage, the world of men. Beyond the regions
over which this extended, it is not affirmed that the deluge
reached.
A deluge thus extending over a limited region of the earth,
produced by a subsidence of the district which formed its basin,
and terminated by a subsequent elevation of the same region,
would only be what we know to have taken place successively
in most, if not in all parts of the earth, and more than
once in many parts. And just as one part has become elevated,
another has been depressed; so that, in fact, during the slow
progress of ages, the diluvial wave was successively passing
over the entire globe. The difference between the Biblical
deluge, viewed as pervading a particular portion of the earth,
and any of the ordinary visits of this diluvial wave to any
particular region, is that the latter took place during the lapse
of vast periods of duration, while the Biblical deluge occupied
in its rise and fall but a single year. Whether the natural
forces in operation might in a particular instance have produced
the exceptionally rapid effects described in the Biblical narra-
tive, is perhaps more than any one could affirm or deny.¹
Nor is it affirmed or denied in the narrative itself. But
whatever were the forces employed, acting in their ordinary
course of operation, or extraordinarily brought into play,
An instance of the great rapidity with which effects of this kind are sometimes
produced within a limited space is afforded by the submersion of the town of Port
Royal, in Jamaica, in 1692. By a convulsion which lasted only three minutes, this
town was sunk several fathoms under water, its walls being still visible in calm
weather. An effect of an opposite kind is the sudden elevation of volcanic islands,
as recently exemplified in the vicinity of Santorini, and often before in the same group
of islands.
i
188
F
..
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!!
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
}
it is impossible wholly to exclude the element of miracle
from the narrative; and if miracle be at all introduced, the
degree in which it is supposed to have existed is quite a
secondary consideration. If it is unreasonable to admit miracle
where it seems unnecessary, it must at any rate be recognised
in any narrative to a degree adequate to produce the effects de-
scribed. Within the limits of what is possible in rerum naturâ,
there is no limit to the extent to which the needful miracle may
be assumed to have been in operation. The flood itself may
have been one of those natural events that have from time
to time occurred in the physical history of the earth. But
still the previous intimation of it to Noah, and the means
prescribed for the preservation of men and beasts, seem
plainly to go far beyond the limits of what is natural. If,
then, the existence of miracle be supposed at all, there is no
reason why the exercise of supernatural power may not have
extended to the removal or overcoming of the many obstacles
and difficulties of a practical nature, with which the narrative
is encumbered on the supposition of its being an account of
things simply natural. The magnifying of those difficulties,
therefore, to any extent within the limits of what is possible in
the nature of things, is quite irrelevant, except upon the sup-
position that miracle must be excluded altogether. To maintain
that is simply to maintain not the mythical character of this
or that particular narrative, but the falsehood of the sacred
Scriptures at large, in their most important characteristics as
the record of a divinely attested revelation. To allow the
miracles, say of the New Testament, or of any part of the Old,
and yet to reject this narrative in its historical character, simply
on account of the miraculousness of the events, is highly incon-
sistent. To relieve this or any other of the Scriptural narratives
of as many embarrassing circumstances as possible is the duty of
every interpreter, as well for the sake of the record itself, as of the
sceptically disposed reader of it. And if the narrative itself con-
tained evidences that it was regarded by the writer, and was
?
·
---
π
THE DELUGE.
189
intended by him to be understood, as an allegorical and sym-
bolical representation of facts and principles, as the second and
third chapters have been shown to be, then one should rightly
treat it as non-historical, irrespective of the question of miracle
altogether, miracle as supposed matter of fact having place in
it only on the supposition of its being a literal history. One
important characteristic, which may seem to countenance this
view of its nature and design, is that frequent and abundant
iteration, that accumulated recapitulation of particulars, which
has been already noticed as distinguishing the first chapter,
which in a still larger degree distinguishes this narrative, and
which has at all times been one of the frequent marks and
tokens of moral and allegorical tales and mystical narratives,
especially when designed for recitation. And even if we should
ascribe to this narrative such a character, it might still have
had as its foundation the memory of some actual event or
events, such as the inundations which, in the traditions of all
nations that are not too barbarous to possess even a tradition,
underlie all their other tales and traditions of past events. If
God is a moral governor of the world, the moral significance of
the event would not be invalidated by its occurrence in a
natural way. The preservation of life from such a catastrophe,
whether providential or miraculous, would in either case be due
to God; though the actual means might have been very different.
from what the narrative represents, on the supposition that it
has the tokens of such an allegorical and mystical tale as we
have spoken of, the admissibility of such an intended character
depending on the visible existence of such marks and tokens.
In this case, perhaps, different minds will form a different
estimate of their significance and weight.
190
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
CHAPTERS X. XI. 1-10.
THE DISPERSION OF MANKIND AND CONFUSION OF
TONGUES.
Q
I. The verification of the ethnographical particulars mentioned
in chapter x. would be entirely beyond the scope of the present
inquiry. The difficulties which it presents, such as that arising
from the use of a Shemitic language by people referred to
Hamitic origin, could perhaps be only solved, or proved in-
soluble, by an amount of knowledge not at present available.
And in a matter which involves nothing that would require
such certainty of information as to call for any Divine inter-
ference in securing its accuracy, we need not suppose that the
writer had any source of information beyond what was within
the range of the learning of his age, and in reach of his con-
temporaries. In this case, as in regard to physical matters,
he may have adopted the prevalent notions of his time. It is
not, indeed, necessary to concede that any serious error exists
in these ethnological statements; but if it should be proved
that such does exist, that would no more invalidate the general
character of the record as part of those sacred writings pro-
duced under that Divine guidance and superintendence, which,
of whatever kind or degree, constitutes the inspiration of Holy
Scripture, than the existence of inaccuracy in the genealogy in
St. Matthew's Gospel invalidates the Gospel history in general.
This passage may therefore be left without anxiety to the in-
vestigations of the learned, and we may patiently await the
results of modern research in philology and ethnography.
In addition to these difficulties, however, Bishop Colenso
raises an objection from the circumstance that Japheth appears
as the youngest of Noah's sons. He says that "Arabic writers
describe him as the eldest, not-as he is in the Bible-the
youngest, son of Noah." He refers to the Rabbis as making
1 Pt. iv. p. 231-2.
191
DISPERSION OF MANKIND.
Shem the youngest, first on account of the order in which the
genealogies in chap. x. place the three, namely, Japheth,
Ham, Shem, this being thus arranged, however, as the Bishop
suggests, to bring the family of Shem into connexion with
the account of his descendant Abraham in the next chapter;
and secondly, because if Noah begat a son at the age of five
hundred years (v. 32), and entered the ark at the age of six
hundred (vii. 11), and yet Shem was only a hundred years old
two years after the flood (xi. 10), he must have been the
youngest son. This, however, would only show that he was
younger than Japheth, and Japheth the eldest, if we assume
Ham to have been the youngest, or at least a younger son, as
intimated in ix. 24. Noah was five hundred when he begat
the first of his sons, in whatever order they were begotten.
At the termination of the flood he was aged six hundred and
one, and therefore two years after the flood he was six hundred
and three. Shem, however, was then only one hundred, and
therefore was born when Noah was five hundred and three.
But the first of Noah's sons was begotten by him when he was
five hundred. This could not therefore have been Shem, and
the seniority would then be between Japheth and Ham. But
as, by ix. 24, Ham was certainly not the eldest, Japheth must
have been the firstborn. The Bishop however says, "It is
evident that in the lists of Gen. v., xi., the ancestors of Abraham
are in every other instance the firstborn sons of their respective
fathers-(the Elohist knowing nothing of Cain and Abel),—and
it is not likely that the case of Shem would be exceptional."
This statement in regard to the primogeniture of Abraham's
ancestors is all a pure assumption, nothing being said in respect
to this in any of the genealogies, except in one single instance
which shows that the discrepancy in regard to the sons of Noah
has no existence but in the imagination of those who are
determined to make difficulties where they do not find them.
That instance is in this case of Japheth himself, who in x. 21 is
called, according to one manner of construing, not "Japheth
192
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
the elder," as in the English version, but "Japheth the eldest,"
as.in the Hebrew, This is rendered by the
Sinan ne? '08.
LXX., ἀδελφῷ Ἰάφηθ τοῦ μειζονος, whereby the primogeniture
of Japheth is asserted here, in agreement with the inference of
the same already arrived at, the use of the comparative form
being explained in the note just referred to. It may be
thought, however, that there is something gratuitous and
therefore improbable in merely asserting here what needed
no mention, that Shem was a brother of Japheth. And for this
reason the translation of the Vulgate may be preferred, fratre
Japheth majore. But even so, the seniority of Shem to Japheth
would not under the circumstances be asserted. The narrative
had already given indication that Japheth was the eldest,
by placing him first. The order of the other two is then trans-
posed in order to conclude with Shem, as the subsequent
history was to be mainly concerned with his descendants, and
his race in a particular line was to be continued in a genealogy
to follow presently after. The order of these two being thus
transposed, the writer, to prevent mistake, when he introduces
Shem as father of the children of Eber, the race with which the
history was concerned, adds, that though placed last, he came
next in order of birth to Japheth. "The elder brother of
Japheth" would thus denote not a brother older than Japheth,
but the brother that came next to him, the elder of his two
brothers, which is really the most natural meaning of the words,
though we in our familiar parlance speak of a man's elder brother
as of one older than himself. And so, whether we follow the
LXX. or the Vulgate, we have a good meaning for the words,
1
The Bishop says, Pt. v., Crit. Anal. p. 37, that this may denote a comparative as
in Gen. i. 16, "the greater light." It is true that where the comparison is only of
two things the superlative is often used; but it is still a true superlative. On the
other hand, when the comparison is of more than two, the comparative form is by a
common usage adopted in place of the superlative. In this case the superlative is
expressed by a comparison with each of the other particulars. And thus is explained
the μeisovos of the LXX. here, and the & veάrepos by which they render
as applied to Ham in ix. 24. The supposition that a comparison is there only made
with Shem is quite untenable, and is one of the desperate attempts that theorists
make in order to escape from a difficulty, the very necessity of which is a refutation
of the theory itself.
¡
DISPERSION OF MANKIND.
193
one consistent with the indications of the relative ages otherwise
given in the narrative. And surely, if the meaning were even
doubtful, all principles of sound interpretation require us to
adopt that sense which does not make a writer contradict himself.
To adopt a different sense for the sake of establishing an incon-
sistency is quite inadmissable. The different order of Noah's
sons observed in the more familiar enumeration of them is
accounted for by the order which they would naturally have in
the mind of an Hebrew. Shem would by such a writer be
thought of first. Ham, the ancestor of the people with whom
the Hebrews had the nearest relations, first in Canaan, then in
Egypt, and afterwards in Canaan again, would next present
himself to the mind. And Japheth, with whose descendants
there existed the remotest relations, whether of place or habits
of intercourse, would naturally come last.
This order may
have been departed from in chap. x., not from any special
regard to the relative ages, but by a natural inversion of the
order commonly observed, the order of nearness to the writer's
thoughts, with a view of bringing Shem into connexion with
the sequel, which more nearly concerns his descendants. The
writer having thus placed Japheth first, and so having given
him his true place according to his primogeniture, then com-
pletes the order of age, by intimating that Shem, though placed
last, came next by birth to Japheth. Thus the indications of
age are made more complete; Ham had already been mentioned
as the youngest, and now Japheth appears as the eldest in a
manner of speaking, which, even if ambiguous, becomes more
definite by the indication already noticed.
The Bishop also objects to the word Eber, as an appellative
converted into the name of an imaginary ancestor. But why
should not a real ancestor have received this name, and be-
queathed it to his descendants, on account of some earlier
migration across the Euphrates or some other river? One
branch of his descendants, the sons of Joktan, seem to have
retained the name, with a transposition of letters, as not un-
,
13
194
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
frequently happened, in the form which still survives in
Arab as Eber does in Hebrew. The transposition would be
the more likely, as the word in this form would so easily
connect itself with the root 1, "to remove," without doing
violence to the significance of the name. Thus may be explained
the description of Shem as the father of all the children of
Eber, not only of those who afterwards retained the designa-
tion of Hebrew, but of the Arabian tribes also. The signi-
ficance of the name would cause it to be revived afterwards,
with special reference to Abraham and his seed, on account of
his departure from Mesopotamia, and settlement in the land
of Canaan. Other instances will appear in subsequent parts
of this book of significant names being revived on account of
some circumstance that has brought their significance to mind,
and thus given them new life.
A serious objection is made by the Bishop and others to the
derivation of the name Babel, from the confusion of tongues,
the account of which is contained in this section, it being, as
the Bishop states, now generally agreed on by the learned
that Babel signifies the house or gate of Bel or Belus. For
cither of these meanings the loss of two radicals in the first
part, and of one in the latter syllable, must have taken place,
, the Arabic, "a gate," or else , "a house," being
',
represented only by the initial, while Bel is only a contracted
form of Such a derivation of the name is exceedingly
doubtful, while the analogy of the Syriac is highly in favour
of the Biblical derivation. The verb, "to confound," would
ן. בעל
.a skull * גלגלת Gilgal, and גלגל like בלבל give in Hebrew
66
""
As this latter is represented in Syriac by Gogulto, so
A
jjajj
denoting hesitancy of speech. But even sup-
2
is
by
But more recently in Pt. v. Crit. Anal. p. 42, the Bishop says, "There is little
doubt among scholars that the word is Bab-Il, meaning "House of God." Which
is the opinion generally received by scholars? In thus restoring one of the radicals
to the first part of this compound, this later derivation leaves the second part still
without one of its radicals, the final only representing this part.
2 See Rosenmüller's Biblical Geography, in Edinburgh Biblical Cabinet, vol. xvii.
p. 64.
CONFUSION OF TONGUES.
195
CC
posing that the name Babel had a different origin, we must re-
member that it is not an uncommon thing, on perceiving a new
significance in a name, or when mentioning some circumstance to
which the name, according to some not improbable derivation or
origin other than the true one, is particularly appropriate, to say
that what bears the name is so called on this account. The mean-
ing in such case is only that the name might well have been
derived from the circumstance of which it is thus significant.
An instance of such a manner of speaking is to be found in
xxvii. 36, where Esau says of Jacob, "Is he not rightly named
Jacob? for he hath supplanted me these two times;" whereas
the original cause of the name Jacob is given in xxv. 26;
"His hand took hold on Esau's heel (pa), and his name was
called Jacob." The original of xxvii. 36 is simply 7 7,
in the sense of annon vocavit. Moreover, in xi. 9, it is not
Jehovah that is said to have given the name of Babel. The
position of Jehovah in the succeeding clause between the verb
confounded" and its object "speech," shows that it cannot be
the nominative to the verb in the first clause. The expression
N, though active in form, is idiomatically used passively;
strictly it is as if the person or thing called his or its own name
so and so, or as if one so called it. This remark on the signi-
ficance of proper names may be applied frequently with advan-
tage to the explanations of proper names occurring in this
book.
שם
II. Another part of this passage, which in these more recent
times has been regarded as attended with difficulty, is that
which describes the manner in which the divergence of language
and dispersion of mankind took place. The existing differences
of languages, as far as they have been brought within the range
of modern philology, seem all attributable to a gradual change,
resulting from growth or degeneration, and point to the opera-
tion of time and the separation of mankind as their cause.
That the existing differences are such as not only might have
naturally resulted from a previous separation of tribes, but, as
196
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
!
far as brought within the range of investigation, indicate this
as the actual order of the events, is so evident to those who have
studied this subject, that some have rejected the account con-
tained in Gen. xi. altogether, while others¹ have been disposed
to treat that account as only describing after an accustomed
manner of Biblical representation the natural effect of the scat-
tering abroad of men on the earth. The question then arises,
how far the Scriptural narrative may be consistent with such a
view of the matter, or necessarily implies a different cause and
order of events.
No difficulty arises from the anthropomorphic representation
of the divine agency in this matter. No visible or external
manifestation of God is implied in the narrative, nor is there,
at any rate, any express assertion of miracle, however it may be
implied on the supposition that the confusion of tongues is here
represented to have taken place out of the ordinary course
before the separation. If this supposition is not necessarily
implied in the narrative, then the agency of God in the matter
is reduced to the ordinary operation of God in the providential
course of things. Any who recognise this providential agency
of God will find no difficulty in the anthropomorphic repre-
sentation of it. Shuckford, who amidst much that is now
quite exploded has many sensible remarks on this subject,
recognises the production of the effect without miracle.
"God
is said to have sent down and confounded their language; but
'tis usual to meet with things spoken of as done by God, which
were effected not by extraordinary miracle, but by the course
of things permitted by him to work out what he would have
done in the world."2 He supposes the divergence to have
begun from a spirit of innovation, leaders of parties inventing
new names, and thus causing confusion. He adds, "It does
indeed look more like a miracle, to suppose the confusion of
1 As the writer of a most interesting article on this subject in Macmillan's Maga-
zine, for May, 1863, pp. 61-71.
2 Connection, B. ii., vol. i., pp. 133-4. Ed. 1731.
CONFUSION OF TONGUES.
197
3
tongues effected instantly in a moment; but the text does not
oblige us to think it so sudden a production. From the be-
ginning of Babel to the dispersion of the nations might be
several years; and perhaps all this time a difference of speech
was growing up until at length it came to such an height as to
cause them to form different companies, and to separate." Still
he did not consider the divergence of language thus produced
the full effect. For he observes,2 "Though the difference of
the tongues was at first but small, yet every language, after the
stability of speech was lost, varying in time from itself, the
languages of different nations in a few ages became vastly
different, and unintelligible to one another." Bishop Stilling-
fleet wavers between the natural and the miraculous character
of the event, but inclines to the latter. He says, "It is certain
that miracles may be in those things which might be effected
otherwise by natural causes, when they are produced without
help of those causes, and in a space of time impossible to
nature." The only proof that the effect was in this case pro-
duced without the help of natural causes would have been its
production in a time imposssible to nature. That this was
the case, however, is an assumption of which there is no evi
dence, but much that points in the opposite direction. The
building of a city that might counteract a growing tendency
to dispersion, which the narrative itself supposes, would be a
work of time, the progress of which would keep pace with the
growth of population, but certainly would not anticipate it to
any great extent.
Le Clerc avoids the difficulty in regard to the variation
of language by supposing that the sameness of lip in v. 1
denotes unity of purpose rather than sameness of language,
which he says would be of less moment for the building of
a city than unity of purpose. He thinks there is no reason
4
2 P. 139.
1 Pp. 134, 5.
3 Origines Sacræ, Lib. iii., ch. 5, §. 4, p. 364. Ed. 1709.
4 Fortè hæc verba homines concordes egisse ante omnia significant, quia ad unam
civitatem condendam, haud paulò magis necessaria est concordia, quàm sermonis
198
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
why we should suppose the confusion to have taken place in a
moment of time, and that it is more likely that the interruption
of the building was occasioned by discord, and that the people
having on this account separated, their language underwent a
change in lapse of time. The words rendered in our version,
"That they may not understand one another's speech," lit.
ut ne audiant, he explains of not complying with one another's
desires. It is possible that in v. 1 one phrase might denote
unity of purpose and the other sameness of language, but few
will think that the phraseology of v. 7 is not more appropriate
to language than design, and that a confusion of tongues, how-
ever produced, is not intended. It may be observed that Philo,
without deciding positively, leans to the opinion adopted by Le
Clerc, and remarks that if only a difference of language had
been intended, confusion would not have been the word used,
but distinction.1
-
2
Heidegger, Rashe Avoth, Exercit. xxi., quotes the Adversaria
of Is. Casaubon, who in reference to this subject maintains
that the first change consisted in the introduction of new
ἐγκλίσεις καὶ προσεγκλίσεις. “It is certain,” Casaubon says,
"that those nations, who were dispersed through various
regions, did not pass suddenly into the most distant parts of the
world, but to those which were nearer their original country.
If therefore entirely different languages had been produced
at Babel, the Assyrians and Chaldeans would of necessity have
retained those strange and different languages. But we see
that the contrary was the fact. For it is most certain that other
similitudo; nec Hebraica Linguæ idioma hanc interpretationem respuit. In support
of this statement he refers to Joshua ix. 2, where the kings are said to have gathered
themselves together against Joshua "with one mouth," to 1 Kings xxii. 13, where
the words of the prophets are said to have declared good to the king "with one
mouth," and to Is. xix. 18, where it is said that five cities of Egypt should speak
"the lip of Canaan." This last expression seems, however, clearly to indicate the
prevalent use of Hebrew owing to the number of Jews resident in those cities. He cites
in reference to the second phrase, "of the same words," the explanation of Rashi :---
Salamo Jarchi idem consilium exponit.-Comment. in Pentateuch. Gen. xi.
· Τὸ γὰρ γινόμενον σύγχυσιν προσεῖπεν, καίτοιγε εἰ διαλέκτων γένεσιν αὐτὸ μόνον
ἐδήλου, κἂν ὄνομα εὐθυβολώτατον ἐπεφήμισεν ἀντὶ συγχύσεως διάκρισιν.-Περι
Συγχύσεως Διαλέκτων.
2 Titulo de Linguarum Confusione.
CONFUSION OF TONGUES.
199
languages retained and still retain more distinct and manifest
traces of Hebrew origin, the nearer they were to the ancient
and primitive seat of mankind. This propinquity we make to
be twofold, of place and of time. For each nation nearest to
the Hebrew, both in respect of situation and of time, approached
most nearly to its language. But distance of place and time
produced as its consequence a greater diversity. This is clear
from a comparison of the Syriac, Chaldee, Arabic, Punic, etc.,
with the Hebrew language." This argument drawn from the
similarity of the Shemitic dialects, holds good against the sup-
position of the introduction of entirely new languages at Babel,
apart from the notion which Casaubon maintained that the
Hebrew was the primitive language. It is to be noted that
the ἐγκλίσεις and προσεγκλίσεις, which he speaks of, are exactly
the variations that would have been coming into existence in
different tribes, though not dispersed more widely than the
necessities of increasing numbers would require, the tendency
to scatter thus produced having been no doubt the cause of the
efforts made to hinder dispersion, as displayed in the building
of the tower and city. Heidegger, reviewing the arguments
on both sides, declares himself in favour of the natural pro-
duction of languages in the course of time. He appeals to the
teaching of experience, and says that there can be no reason
for supposing that the change did not originally take place, as
we now see it in progress from various causes, unless it can be
shown by clear proof that it happened otherwise by the inter-
ference of a miracle.¹ That there was no such miracle, he
argues from the difference between confusion of tongue or lip,
and confusion of tongues. Two or three people might speak
¹ Colligimus multis fidiculis, Linguarum diversitatem non esse immediatè per
confusionem, ingeneratis novis habitibus, introductam, sed procedente tempore, divisis
gentibus, notoriam illam linguarum mutationem et diversitatam ex uno principio,
in quod per artem resolubilis est, obrepsisse.-Denique experientia rerum magistra
ipsa quoque lenocinari nobis videtur. Nulla enim ratio, cur aliter antiquitus
linguarum varietatem obvenisse opinemur, quàm hodieque linguarum mutationem
contingere cernimus.-Eodem modo antiquitus unum idioma in varia successu
temporis divisum esse, proclive est divinatu, nisi miraculo intercedente aliter
factum esse liquidò probari possit.
200
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
with confused discourse, and so not understand one another,
without diversity of languages. Moreover, like Philo, he
thinks that confusion of tongue is not the proper expression to
denote the introduction of languages different from that pre-
viously spoken.
2
We may now pass to a much earlier authority. It is well
known to the learned that Gregory of Nyssa held the notion of
the human origin of language in general; and in reply to the
objection to this opinion which might be drawn from the
story of the confusion of tongues, he says that God is not said
to have produced languages on that occasion, but to have con-
founded the existing language. He does not, indeed, say in
what manner this confusion was produced; but he says that,
while living together, men had one language, but that when
God willed the earth to be peopled, then men, being scat-
tered according as they agreed in language, went apart in
different directions.3 Hence he alleges that his opinion of the
human origin of language, both before and after the dispersion,
is not in any way invalidated by this narrative. It is plain
that the community and difference of speech, in accordance with
which men went together or parted asunder, may in Gregory's
conception have been growing up simultaneously with a general
sameness of language through a considerable period, as well as
produced all at once; indeed, we might say the former is more
consistent with his view of the matter. Thus we see that long
before the existence of recent linguistic theories, not only
4
1 Planum est disparata hæc duo, confusio linguæ seu sermonis et labii, et confusio
linguarum, hoc est divisio linguarum, seu loquendi generum verbis et idiotismis
discrepantium. Sic enim duo tresve loqui possent confuso sermone, neque ulli
invicem intellecto. An iccircò duarum vel trium diversarum linguarum ritu ?
2 Ει δέ τις τὴν ἐπὶ τῆς πυργοποιΐας σύγχυσιν ὡς ἐναντιουμένην τοῖς εἰρημένοις
προσφέρῃ, οὐδὲ ἐκεῖ ποιεῖν λέγεται γλώσσας δ θεὸς τῶν ἀνθρώπων, ἀλλὰ συγχεῖν τὴν
οὖσαν, ὡς οὐ μὴ πάντες πάντων ἀκούειν. - Αdv. Eunom. xii.
3 Τότε διεσπαρθέντες κατὰ τὴν τὴς φωνῆς κοινωνίαν ἄλλος ἀλλαχῆ διεσπάρη.—
Ibid.
4 Ωστε μένει πάγιος ἡμῖν ὁ λόγος δ τὰς ἀνθρωπίνας φωνὰς τῆς ἡμετέρας διανοίας
εὑρήματα εἶναι ὁριζόμενος· οὔτε γὰρ ἀπ᾿ ἀρχῆς ἕως δμόφωνον ἅπαν ἦν ἑαυτῷ τὸ
ἀνθρώπινον, θεοῦ ῥημάτων διδασκαλίαν τινὰ γεγονυίαν τοῖς ἀνθρώποις παρὰ τῆς γραφῆς
μεμαθήκαμεν· οὔτε εἰς ποικίλας γλώσσων διαφόρας διετμηθέντων, ὅπως ἂν ἕκαστος
φθέγγοιτο θεῖος ἐπεστάτησε νόμος.—Ibid.
CONFUSION OF TONGUES.
201
thoughtful and learned, but also orthodox men found a difficulty
in accepting the popular interpretation of this narrative, and
that efforts to explain it differently are not in all cases to be
ascribed to modern rationalism.
(C
Taking the passage now in connexion with the ethnographical
account contained in the preceding chapter, we learn from that
chapter that, however the divergence of language took place, it
did not consist in a confusion of tongues amongst the members
of the same tribe or family. This is plain from the manner in
which it represents the different countries as partitioned amongst
the descendants of the several sons of Shem, Ham, and Japheth,
every one after his tongue, after their families, in their
nations." The divergence was between the languages of
different tribes or families, not amongst the members of the
same tribes. If the confusion took place before the sepa-
ration, it must then have been consistent with the sameness
of language in the several tribes. This points, at any rate, to a
tribal separation as its cause, and might have been produced by
the absence of frequent intercourse between the members of
different tribes, in certain stages of the progress of language,
without any very wide local separation. A tendency in this di-
rection may have existed and produced certain effects from the
very first. That there existed such a tendency to disperse from
the beginning is implied in the apprehension, which men are
represented as having felt, lest they should be scattered abroad,
and in the political design of counteracting that tendency by in-
creasing the concentration of men in a great city. That men
should be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth, instead
of concentrating themselves in crowded centres, is represented
through the whole preceding part of the book as the intention
of Providence, the concentration in large cities being subordi-
nate, as we see it to be, to the peopling of countries. It was to
counteract this design of Providence that men were engaged,
according to this account, in building their great city and tower;
and it was to hinder them from thus counteracting the design
202
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
of Providence that God is represented as interposing. He
resolves, in consequence, to go down and confound their lan-
guage. We have just seen that this could not have been a
promiscuous confusion, but that, however it was accomplished, it
was consistent with the unity of language in the several tribes.
of men. Why may not the statement of v. 8, " And the Lord
scattered them abroad upon the face of the earth," express the
means rather than the effect of this confusion ? Or
Or may not
each have been viewed by the writer as in its turn a cause, as
well as an effect of the other? The spirit of separation already
at work, as we have seen, may have been increased and stimu-
lated; ordinary and probable dissensions may have caused wider
separation, or increased the tendency towards it. This, as
having happened under the providential arrangements of God,
may be truly ascribed to divine agency. The separation thus
effected would produce in time divergence of speech, and
this would, in turn, widen the separation, and effectually hinder
the reunion of tribes thus scattered. Even in this way, the
priority of the divergence of speech may have existed in the
lesser differences that may have originated between different
tribes through want of promiscuous intercourse, before they
were widely separated. At any rate, nothing is more fre-
- quently observable in the history of mankind, than a concur-
rence of progressing events taking their rise from some obscure
beginning of one, and thenceforward by a mutual action and
reaction becoming each in turn a cause and an effect of the
other. And then if it does not come within the design of a
narrator to trace back the results to that first obscure beginning,
"The confusion of tongues and the dispersion of nations are spoken of in the
Bible as contemporaneous events. 'So the Lord scattered them abroad,' is stated as
the execution of the Divine counsel, 'Let us confound their language.' The
divergence of the various families into distinct tribes and nations ran parallel with
the divergence of speech into dialects and languages."- Article on the Confusion of
Tongues, in Smith's History of the Bible, by Rev. W. L. Bevan.
2 The writer in Macmillan's Magazine, already referred to, quotes Moffatt's
Missionary Labours in Southern Africa, as representing that amongst some of the
African tribes, where separation from the central gatherings of the nation takes
place, "In the course of a single generation the entire character of the language is
changed."
CONFUSION OF TONGUES.
203
it will depend on the point from which, in accordance with the
object he has in view, the writer takes his start, which shall
appear in his narrative as the cause of the other. The writer
of the present narrative introduces the divine interposition
at such a point as to give the priority as cause apparently to
the variation of speech. But a different order of priority in
the previous steps is not obscurely intimated. For setting out
with the unity of language, by the apprehension lest men should
be dispersed which is mentioned, he clearly implies the existence
of some tendency to separate-a tendency already showing itself
in actual separation to some extent. The efforts to counteract
that fail through the divine interposition. That interposition
may have been no more than the operation of the natural law
whereby the lesser partition of tribes, that had been already
taking place, produced its effect in a change of language, which
successfully counteracted the efforts made to hinder dispersion.
The reason why this manner of representing the matter was
adopted may be found in the object which we may reasonably
suppose the Hebrew Legislator had in view; and the use of so
strongly representing the divine agency in producing the effects
described was doubtless the tendency this representation would
have to counteract the disposition of the children of Israel to
coalesce with other nations. It was the policy of his govern-
ment to make them the most distinct and separate people in the
world. This was necessary for the preservation of the true
religion, of which that people was to be the depositary for many
ages. Their removal from amongst the Egyptians, with whom
they had so long sojourned, and a return to whom for any
purpose was so strictly prohibited, and their future separation
from the nations surrounding them, was to have a religious
character impressed on it. This design would be much pro-
moted by the representation of the divine agency as brought
into operation, at the early beginnings of human history, to keep
the tribes and nations of mankind separate and distinct. And,
accordingly, in the Song of Moses, at the close of his adminis-
204
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
tration, we find him referring the people to this very narrative
in a manner not to be mistaken :—
"Remember the days of old,
Consider the years of many generations;
Ask thy father and he will show thee,
Thy elders and they will tell thee:
When the Most High caused the nations to inherit,
When he scattered the sons of Adam,
He set boundaries to the peoples,
For the number of the sons of Israel." 1
The expression, "when he scattered the sons of Adam," plainly
refers us to the execution of the divine purpose to scatter them,
as described in this chapter, when God saw "the city and the
tower which the sons of Adam were building." The mention
of the sons of Adam, instead of the sons of Noah as in the title
of this section, "The generations of the sons of Noah," is
peculiar, and was evidently in the mind of the writer of the
later passage. The subservience of the present narrative to the
writer's object would not be affected in any way by the manner
in which the dispersion of mankind was accomplished, so long
as it is represented to have been in accordance with the designs
of Providence. But the force of the example is greatly
strengthened by showing that concurrently with this provi-
dential design to scatter abroad in the earth the children of
men, there was at work a divine influence-the influence of a
natural law, and therefore truly ascribed to God, the operation
of which may have itself, indeed, originated in the earliest and
most partial separations, but the subsequent effect of which was
most potently to cause a wider separation, and to hinder the
success of any attempts to counteract the natural tendency of
men to separate. This the narrative very distinctly presents to
our view, but in a manner more suited to the capacity of those
for whom it was written, than if it had given a more particular
and literal representation of the way in which the events
actually took place.
Enough has perhaps been now said to remove any difficulty
1 Deut. xxxii. 7, 8.
CONFUSION OF TONGUES.
205
which this narrative might occasion, as seeming to describe the
events in a different order from that in which the analogy of
the changes that have ever since taken place would seem to
indicate. The actual order is implied in the statements of the
narrative, sufficiently to clear the account from the charge of
misconception; the seeming inversion of order is only apparent,
inasmuch as once the process had come into operation each of
the two concurrent events became in turn, in the progress
of their growth, a cause and an effect of the other. The
remarks that have been made will also remove the difficulty
which has been occasioned by the supposed needless introduction
of miracle to produce a result, for which natural causes, that
must have been in operation from the beginning, would have
sufficed. The narrative, in fact, does not necessarily imply the
operation of any miraculous interference of God whatever,
though it does ascribe the result in a most decided manner to
the divine agency. That agency may have been the ordinary
operation of the natural laws which God had established in the
world, the anthropomorphic representation of it being in entire
accordance with the Scriptural manner of representing all
the operations of God in nature,-that God who rides upon the
winds, and makes the clouds his chariot, whose voice is in the
thunder, and his footsteps upon the sea.
In this short narrative we may likewise notice, though
perhaps only in a slight degree, the characteristic already re-
marked in former instances, where the repetition of a particular
formula seems to give the narrative the air of a tale intended for
recitation, and veiling under its form an event or moral somewhat
different from that which is actually expressed. This character-
istic in the present case consists in the repetition of the phrase
which appears in the English Version as "Go to ;" and as the
original word for this, 7, which occurs here three times, and
is put into the mouth both of God and of men, is elsewhere found
in this interjectional sense only in xxxviii. 16, and Exod. i. 10,
its repetition here is certainly remarkable, considering how
206
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
short the entire passage is, and is not without significance in
connexion with the remarks already made.
CHAPTERS X. 19, XIII. 10-13, XIV., XVIII. 20-33, XIX.
THE CITIES OF THE PLAIN.
THE destruction of the cities of the plain, or of the circle, as
the word should perhaps be rendered, however it was
occasioned, and by whatever means effected, seems to be as
clearly an historical event as any on record. Josephus, De Bell
Jud., iv. 8, 4, says that the ruins, or as he calls them, the
shadows of the five cities, were still visible in his time. He had
himself visited that region, for he tells us, Ant. i. 11, 4, that he
had himself seen the pillar of salt into which Lot's wife was
turned. Doubtless he saw, what are still to be seen, masses
of salt, from which pillar-like blocks are sometimes separated,
one of which he might naturally have supposed to be that with
which Lot's wife was encrusted according to the Biblical
narrative. Strabo also, Geog. xvi. Syria, mentions the extant
remains of a wall of sixty stadia which had enclosed the city of
Sodom. Indeed, if De Sauley's observations are to be relied
on, there are traces of the ruins still in existence. At any rate,
it was only in Christian times that the notion prevailed that the
site of the cities was overflowed by the Dead Sea, after their
destruction. When Genesis x. 19 was written, they were
sufficiently extant to furnish notorious landmarks, by which
to limit the border of the Canaanites. Had they been at that
time covered by the sea, it would have been the sea itself and
not the no longer visible cities which would have been men-
tioned as the boundary. In chap. xiii. they are mentioned
as already destroyed, but there is no intimation that the sea had
overflowed the plain. Rather the manner of speaking seems
to imply the desolateness of the region in the writer's time,
by the mention of its fertility before the destruction. The
THE CITIES OF THE PLAIN.
207
plain or circle was still there, though not as it once was,
"before Jehovah destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, as a garden
of Jehovah;" and in the account of the destruction in xix. it
is also to be noticed that there is not a word said of the sea.
It is true that in xiv. 3, after the mention of "the vale
of Siddim," the gloss is added, "That is the Salt Sea." Mr.
Grove, in Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, Art. Siddim, thinks
that the writer of this gloss believed that the sea had over-
flowed the site. And Josephus himself, Ant. i. 10, says that
the vale called "the Slime Pits" became after the destruction
of Sodom the lake Asphaltitis. It is plain, however, from all
that Josephus says about this region, that he distinguishes this
valley from the adjacent site of the cities. And, indeed, Gen.
xiv. itself seems so to distinguish it likewise. The kings of the
five cities had come together to () the vale of Siddim. Had
this valley contained in it the five cities, this manner of speaking
would have been absurd. Whether therefore the writer of the
gloss thought the sea had subsequently overflowed this valley,
or merely that this vale was the site of the sea, its border being
the place where the kings assembled, and where the slime pits
existed, plainly nothing is said about the site of the cities in
connexion with the sea.
As chapter xiv. mentions one of the physical characteristics
of the region, the existence of bitumen, so does chapter xix.
another, namely, the salt with which Lot's wife, as she
lingered, was overwhelmed. These and the existing desolation
of the region are the points of agreement between the particu-
lars mentioned in this book and the present state of that
country. On the other hand, the fact that the geological
character of the region is for the most part that of aqueous
formation, and that the igneous rocks found there are ancient
trap-rocks, and not the products of recent volcanic action,
presents no difficulty in the way of our receiving the Biblical
story of the destruction of the cities. On the contrary, the
appearance of volcanic action as the cause of the destruction
208
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
would be rather adverse to the Scriptural account. For nowhere
is the destruction ascribed to that action, in whole or in part.
Fire from the atmosphere is the sole physical cause that is
mentioned. The probable use of asphalt for mortar in the
building of the cities would no doubt have rendered them more
liable to destruction by means of fire. The existence indeed
of bitumen in any region may be taken to indicate the develop-
ment of internal heat by which the oils of vegetable deposits
might be distilled; and this internal heat might predispose a
region affected by it to earthquakes, such as have occurred in
Syria from time to time. It might, however, be only a local
development of heat produced by chemical decomposition in
the ligneous deposits, insufficient to cause any disturbance of
the surface like an earthquake. And this is the more likely,
if the bituminous matter is limited in its extent, as appears to
be the case. But, at any rate, the story in Genesis makes no
reference to this as a conspiring cause, except so far as it may
be imagined that it is implied in the use of the verb " over-
throw," in describing the destruction. But though this verb,
77, in its literal signification, implies an overturning, yet its
use here is not decisive. For, not to insist on the laxer use
of the word to denote any kind of destruction, it is certain that
the destruction of buildings by fire tends to the fall of masonry
by the spoiling of the cement, which would especially happen if
bitumen was used, and also by the removal of the timber bands
and supports, when consumed by the fire.
The destruction is ascribed by Josephus to a thunderbolt,
that is, to lightning. The account in Gen. xix. 24 ascribes it
to "brimstone and fire." This is of course only a hendiadis
denoting sulphureous fire. And a reference to Ps. xi. 6, “Upon
the wicked he shall rain snares, fire and brimstone, and a tem-
pest of flames," may show that this is only a popular and
figurative way of representing lightning. Also in Deut. xxix.
23 the reduction of "the whole land to brimstone, and salt,
and burning, like the overthrow of Sodom," is plainly a figura-
THE CITIES OF THE PLAIN.
209
tive description of the threatened desolation. But though we
might reasonably ascribe the destruction of these cities to the
operation of natural lightning, we should not yet thereby ex-
clude the miraculous from the Biblical narrative. The predic-
tion of the approaching destruction, and its occurrence as
foretold, would still be supernatural. And perhaps, ultimately,
very many of the other Scripture miracles, also, may be reduced
to the supernatural prediction of events, in the production
of which God has used the ordinary forces of nature acting
according to their wonted and regular operation.
Much perplexity has been occasioned by the name Siddim in
Gen. xiv. The Vulgate translates by callis silvestris, which
seems to be only a guess; and the LXX. render the name
ἡ φάραγξ ἡ ἁλυκὴ, which seems to be only borrowed from the
subjoined mention of the Salt Sea. Josephus calls it Tηv Koiλada
τὴν λεγομένην φρέατα ἀσφάλτου. He may have understood the
mention of the wells of bitumen in v. 10 as an explanation.
At any rate, perhaps he was not far from the true explanation.
Siddim (D) may have been akin to T sid, which as a verb
signifies to plaster, and as a noun mortar. The name, as it is
used in Gen. xiv., is not strictly a proper name, for it takes the
article from the preceding word with which it is in stat. constr.
The word may have signified plasterers, or makers of cement,-
a trade which may have existed there in consequence of the use
of bitumen for mortar, as in Gen. xi. 3: "They had brick for
stone, and bitumen for mortar.”
There is one part of the narrative relating to the destruction
of Sodom, that presents in a marked degree a peculiarity already
noticed in certain portions of this book. The intercession of
Abraham on behalf of that city is remarkable for the recurrence
of the same expressions in the same order throughout. The
repeated use of Adonai, the deprecatory sentences with which
his requests are prefaced, repeating one or other of two forms,
and the recurrence in each request of the word, rendered
"peradventure" in the English Version, give to this passage
14
210
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
the same character of a story intended for recitation, which
distinguishes the first chapter and the history of the deluge,
and in a lesser degree the account of the confusion of tongues.
The nature of the subject matter renders this peculiarity other-
wise less significant here.
CHAPTER XXII.
THE OFFERING OF ISAAC.
I. THE first question which suggests itself to us, in reference.
to this transaction, is the place where it was enacted, called in
the words describing the command to Abraham, a mount in the
land of Moriah. The supposition, up to very recent times.
adopted by all, was that this was the Mount Moriah on which
the temple of Jerusalem was built, except that the Samaritans
maintained that it was Mount Gerizim. Recently, however, a
disposition has become prevalent to identify the place where
the offering of Isaac was enacted with the place called Moreh,
where Abraham first established the worship of God on his
settlement in the land of Canaan. One reason for this sup-
position, the proximity to Mount Gerizim, loses all weight
when it is considered that the Samaritans had other motives for
fixing on this place, than any knowledge or tradition. From
the time of the separation of the two kingdoms it became the
object of the Samaritan rulers to break off all regard in the
people's minds from the holy sites of Judæa. And the later
Samaritans were not less inclined to maintain the severance, as
we see from St. John iv. 20: "Our fathers worshipped in this
mountain; and ye say that in Jerusalem is the place where
men ought to worship." The similarity of the two names,
Moreh and Moriah, is also a slender reason; Moreh is strictly a
proper name, and as such, both in Gen. xii. 6 and Deut. xxix.
30, though in the genitive after a definite noun, rejects the
article; the "hill of Moreh," mentioned in Judges vii. 1,
where the name has the article, being a totally different place,
211
THE OFFERING OF ISAAC.
as shown in Smith's Dictionary of the Bible. On the other
hand, the name Moriah, in the two places of its occurrence,
namely, Gen. xxii. and 2 Chron. iii. 1, bears the article as an
appellative, whether it denotes the same situation in both places
or not. It is true the LXX. render the Moreh of Gen. xii. and
the Moriah of Gen. xxii. alike by the adjective úчŋλǹ, in one
case translating by the words, "the lofty oak," in the other by
"the high land." It is plain that on whatever grounds they
proceeded in thus translating, this gives no support to the sup-
position that the names, as names of places, are synonymous, in-
asmuch as they did not take the words for names of places at
all, but as descriptive adjectives.
An argument is founded on the similarity of the names, both
in form and in signification, as derived from the same root. In
respect to the former, Mr. Grove, in Smith's Dictionary of the
מוֹרֶה is only the feminine form of מוֹרִיָה Bible, tells us that
According to no analogy of the construction of feminine forms
can this be said; the masculine form should in this case have
have been. It is true the resemblance is greater, and
the relation of masculine and feminine forms more apparent, as
the words are given in the Samaritan Pentateuch, and
7. But then these Samaritan readings are liable to the
suspicion, that they arose from a disposition on the part of
the Samaritans to identify the Moreh and Moriah of Genesis,
and to distinguish the latter from the Moriah of Solomon's
temple. The same may be said of their supposed signification,
vision, as derived from to see. This derivation, as concerns
the Hebrew forms, is very dubious. It would be more probable
in regard to the Samaritan readings, which, however, are subject
to the suspicion just mentioned. It is true that the Moriah of
2 Chron. iii. 1 is supposed to be there all but expressly derived
from the verb, and consequently to denote vision plainly in the
mind of the writer. No doubt this is true if we judge by
the translations. Thus in the English Version we read, "Solo-
mon began to build the house of the Lord at Jerusalem in
212
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
mount Moriah, where the Lord appeared unto David his
father." "The Lord," however, is supplied, although the
account in 2 Sam. xxiv. makes no mention of any appearance
of the Lord, but only of the destroying angel, the communica-
tions from the Lord himself having been made through Gad,
David's seer. Hence in the margin of the English Version,
the reading, "which was seen of David his father," is given.¹
Doubtless the indication of the place by Gad, as that on which
David was to offer the atonement, is what the writer of the
Chronicles refers to, inasmuch as David himself had inferred
from this, that it was the place on which the temple was to be
built. Thus we read in 1 Chron. xxii. 1, immediately after the
purchase of the threshing floor of Ornan and the building of
the altar and offering on it the burnt-offering, that David said,
"This is the house of the Lord God, and this is the altar of the
burnt-offering for Israel." And accordingly in 2 Chron. iii. 1,
after the clause, "which was seen of David his father," there
is subjoined the additional clause, "in a place which David
appointed." Indeed the former clause might be rendered,
"Which was provided by David his father," the latter being
an explanatory addition in that case. Any reference therefore
to the idea of the vision in the name Moriah as given in 2
Chron. iii. 1 is to say the least extremely questionable.
Another argument, on which much stress is laid, is the
supposed height of the hill of the sacrifice, rendering it visible
from a great distance, "afar off," as in Gen. xxii. 4; whereas
Dean Stanley informs us that the towers of Jerusalem are indeed
seen at a distance of three miles to the south, but not as an
elevation, while there is nothing that answers to the place "afar
off," to which Abraham "lifted up his eyes." But here there
is too much stress laid on the words, "lifted up his eyes," as im-
plying an elevation of any great height, or indeed any elevation
at all. In v. 13 of this chapter, Abraham is said to have lifted
1
7175
rate if Moriah be feminine, as it probably is.
N. Mount not Moriah, is the antecedent of the relative; at any
213
THE OFFERING OF ISAAC.
up his eyes and seen the ram caught in the thicket, at a time
when having doubtless had his eyes just before raised towards
the angel speaking from heaven, he must in fact have lowered
them, to see the ram. The expression is used of directing the
eyes in any manner. Also the phrase, "afar off," may denote
any distance beyond immediate proximity, according to the cir-
cumstances; as in xxxvii. 18, "When they saw him afar off,
even before he came near unto them." Here it could not have
denoted a distance much greater than that mentioned by Dean
Stanley, inasmuch as there was now no occasion to bring the
attendants or the ass any further, and Isaac was able to bear
the load of the wood laid upon him to the appointed place, which
may still have been, as the Moriah of Jerusalem is, a hill, though
not distinguishable as such at any distance.
The immediate proximity to Salem, the city of Melchizedek,
if that were Jerusalem, is thought to be unlike "the lonely and
desolate spot implied by the narrative, where not even fire was
to be obtained, and where no help but that of the Almighty was
nigh," as Mr. Grove remarks. But even under the walls of the
city of Melchizedek the whole may have taken place without
attracting the notice of the inhabitants, and the desolate loneli-
ness of the spot, supposed to be implied in the narrative, has no
place in it whatever. It is not implied that Abraham could
not obtain fire; but going to an unknown place he took with
him by way of precaution what would be needful for the intended
sacrifice.
¿
The last argument relied on is the silence of the sacred
writers in reference to this event in connexion with the dedica-
tion of the spot, or the building or restorations of the temple,
or in any of the paronomastic addresses of the prophets, the
sermon of St. Stephen, or the Epistle to the Hebrews, while it is
alleged that, had the transaction taken place on the site of the
temple, some allusion to it would without fail have been made.
This argumentum ab silentio is notoriously not to be relied on;
the instances of unaccountable silence respecting undoubted
214
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
facts, where we might have expected them to be mentioned, are
too numerous amongst ancient writers to allow it any weight,
except as tending to corroborate arguments that may have con-
siderable weight in themselves. In the present case, the clause
in 2 Chron. iii. 1, "Which was seen" () or "provided by
David,” may fairly be taken as containing an obscure reference
to the Jehovah-jireh, and the saying, "In the mount of the Lord
it shall be seen," of Gen. xxii. 14, so that the absence of all
such reference is not so complete as is alleged.
On the whole these arguments are not sufficient to disturb
the traditional view, which has in its favour not only the tradi-
tion itself, but the identity of the name, used in both places
alike as an appellative bearing the article. And it is also to be
remarked that it is a mistake to say that the name is used in a
more limited sense in 2 Chron. iii. 1, than in Gen. xxii. 2. In
the one case a particular hill in the land of Moriah is to be
shown to Abraham; in the other, a particular hill of Moriah
was pointed out to David, the antecedent to the relative in
this latter case being the word hill, and not Moriah, which
is probable a feminine word, while the relative and verb are
masculine.
II. The next question of moment which this narrative suggests
is the source from which the temptation of Abraham proceeded.
The Bishop of Natal, in the sermon on this subject which he
was not permitted to preach, treats it as a spontaneous impulse
arising in the patriarch's mind under the influence of a preva-
lent notion that human sacrifice was acceptable to God. The
Dean of Westminster, in his beautiful Lectures on the History
of the Jewish Church, Lect. ii. p. 48, First Series, has the follow-
ing note on this subject:-"That this temptation or trial, through
whatever means it was suggested, should in the sacred narrative
be ascribed to the overruling voice of God, is in exact accordance
with the general tenor of the Hebrew Scriptures. A still more
striking instance is contained in the history of David, where
the same temptation, which in one book is ascribed to God, is
THE OFFERING OF ISAAC.
215
"
(
in another ascribed to Satan: 'The Lord moved David to say,
Go, number Israel' (2 Sam. xxiv. 1). Satan provoked David
to number Israel' (1 Chron. xxi. 1)." These two passages,
2 Sam. xxiv. 1, and 1 Chron. xxi. 1, are likewise instanced
by Dr. Hannah, Bampton Lecture, 1863, Lect. iii. p. 88, as
affording an example of the Scriptural antinomies which involve
an apparent contradiction. He takes both texts as they stand
in the English Version, but in a note gives a series of extracts
from commentators that have endeavoured to evade the difficulty
by assuming that Jehovah is not the subject of the second clause
of 2 Sam. xxiv. 1, as for instance in the reading in the margin
of the English Bible, where Satan is supplied, "Again the
anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and (Satan)
moved David to say, Go, number Israel." Others suppose that
the verb standing without a subject, the clause should be
rendered " one moved David," or David was moved. Any
artifice of this kind does great violence to the words as they
stand in the original, and would only be admissible if the
passage itself showed that the subject of the verb could not be
carried on from the first clause. To import a reason for it from
another book by a different author, after the reader must have
first naturally and spontaneously supplied a subject from the pre-
ceding clause, is perfectly and absolutely unwarrantable. At the
same time the introduction of a new agent does not sever the im-
pulse to number the people from the divine operation, as still it
will appear as the effect of God's displeasure against Israel; and
the introduction of Satan, as in the margin of the English
Version, only brings into the one passage the simultaneous
ascription to God and the devil of an effect, which otherwise
is supposed to be ascribed to these agents severally in different
passages. On the other hand the supposition of Satanic agency
in the matter at all seems due to a mistake. In 1 Chron. xxi.
1 the word Satan is not used as a proper name.
It is an
appellative, and nowhere appears in the true character of
a proper name. In the book of Job, indeed, and in that of
216
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
Zechariah, it is used of the evil being; but then it has the
article prefixed, "the adversary," Kат' è§оуýv. In all other
places it is used as a common noun, denoting an adversary
of any kind, and is employed even in reference to the "angel of
Jehovah," perhaps a personal manifestation of God, in the
story of Balaam on his way to Balak. In Ps. cix. 6 it
means an adversary generally-no doubt a human adversary,
as appears from the parallelism :-
"Set thou a wicked man over him,
And let an adversary stand at his right hand.”
It is true that both here and in 1 Chron. xxi. 1, the LXX.
translate by diáßoλos; but then in both places there is no article,
and this word is used by them to represent other kinds of adver-
saries than the devil, as and 77. Thus the Chronicler only
says in a general way, what is more particularly related in the
book of Samuel: "An adversary stood up against Israel, and
moved David." It is to be further considered, that the number-
ing of the people was not a thing wrong in itself. The evil was
in certain dispositions and feelings attendant on and arising out
of the transaction in the mind of David.
It is not, however, to be denied, that even in our temptations
to ill there is at times an indirect agency ascribed to God in the
Scriptures. We may instance the hardening of Pharaoh's heart,
and the petition of the Lord's Prayer, "Lead us not into temp-
tation." A mere probationary trial or temptation would not be
such, if there was not in the case some incitement to evil, how-
ever we may be sure that the direct suggestion of evil does not
proceed from God. Indeed, as our temptations in general arise
from something in our natural constitution, which necessarily
moves us to a certain course of action under certain circum-
stances, it is impossible to exclude the divine agency in its remote,
if not its immediate, operation from any of our temptations.
Hence, in the note of Dean Stanley above quoted, it is not so
much the supposition that the same incitement might from
different points of view be ascribed to both God and Satan, that
1
THE OFFERING OF ISAAC.
217
has reasonably wounded the sensitiveness of pious feeling, as
the application of this principle to the case of Abraham's offer-
ing of Isaac, which has shocked the minds of many that have
regarded this transaction as in a special and peculiar manner
the result of an immediate and extraordinary divine command.
It may be observed that the case differs in one very material
respect from those probationary temptations of which we have
just spoken. In these, the doing of the act, the incitement to
which constitutes the means of trial, awakens the displeasure
of God. In the case of Abraham, the performance, as far as it
was permitted, of that which he was, in whatever way, moved
to do as the means of trial, meets with the highest approval
and commendation of God. It is to be further noticed, that
the mere spontaneous impulse awakened in Abraham's mind,
resulting from an habitual persuasion that human sacrifice was
acceptable to God, as supposed by the Bishop of Natal, seems
wholly and absolutely inconsistent with the representation of
the transaction in the book of Genesis. It is there plainly
represented, not only that Abraham thought he was acting in
obedience to a divine command, but that he actually did in some
way receive such a command; and this command is attributed
to Elohim, the generic name of deity, which, as will abundantly
be seen hereafter, is continually employed where the object is
to mark a contrast between divine and human-between God and
his creatures. And then, further, it is to be remarked, that as
regards the channel through which the command was given, it
is described in the same way as the other divine commands
represented in this book as given to Abraham; such for
instance as the command to leave his native country and settle
in Canaan, or the command to observe the rite of circumcision.
Through whatever means these commands were given, or what-
ever manner of representation is adopted in describing the com-
munication of them, we can make no distinction, nor sever one
from another, as more or less historical. And as regards these
communications in general, there is no greater difficulty in sup-
218
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
posing the historical truth of their divine origin, than in respect
to the supposition of the like historical truth of the divine.
communications recorded in subsequent parts of the Old Testa-
ment, and in the New.
III. But as regards the moral aspect of this particular trans-
action, it may, not unreasonably, be asked whether it is possible
that such a command as that to Abraham to slay his son in
sacrifice could have proceeded from God, and whether any
amount of evidence whatever should have led Abraham to
believe that God could have given him such a command? To
this enquiry, as it regards God, it may be answered that plainly,
according to the entire representation, God had no intention
of permitting Abraham to carry the command into execution,
it being given only for trial, and the approbation of God having
reference only to the faith and the readiness to yield up the
dearest object at God's command, which were manifested on this
occasion. And at the same time there may have been that in
Abraham's state of moral feeling on this subject, the participa-
tion by him in a low sense of the value of human life as then
prevalent, and, it may be added, a familiarity with the prevalent
notion of human sacrifice and its acceptableness to God, which
would have rendered any direct censure of Abraham, for intend-
ing to slay his son in obedience to a supposed divine command,
undeserved and therefore unjust-any direct censure; for in-
directly the mind of God in regard to such an act was plainly
enough made known, by the suddenness of the divine interposi-
tion at the arrival of the critical moment, and the urgency and
decisiveness with which the fatal stroke was arrested. This may
fairly be understood, in connexion with what is elsewhere taught
in this book of the unlawfulness of taking human life, as an in-
dication of the divine will on this matter in general; while the
substitution of the ram, and still more the name assigned to
the place by Abraham, Jehovah-jireh, taken in connexion with
his previous remark to Isaac, "My son, God will provide himself a
lamb for a burnt offering," may also be regarded as an indication
-
THE OFFERING OF ISAAC.
219
of the divine will, and of Abraham's perception of it, in respect
to human sacrifice. And then, as far as the question proposed
above relates to Abraham himself, the existence of those habits
of thinking, which would have made the divine censure unde-
served, would have incapacitated him from feeling, as one of us
would feel, that such a command could not come from God, and
so ought not to be obeyed. And thus what would justly be
discommended in the case of one of us, may have been highly
commendable in Abraham's case. We need not, therefore, insist
on the possibility that a secret feeling may have all along pos-
sessed the patriarch's mind, and sustained him in his trial, that
God would extricate him in some unforeseen way from the
terrible situation in which he found himself placed-a feeling
that may have prompted the expectation that God would provide
himself a lamb for a burnt offering, however he was under the
necessity of proceeding, as far as he could see, to the last ex-
tremity, and which would have grown out of his faith in the
promise that in Isaac should his seed be called. Such a feeling,
at any rate, according to the Epistle to the Hebrews, extended
to the persuasion that God was able to bring him again from
the dead. And perhaps the manner in which the writer of the
Epistle expresses this feeling, that God was able to bring him
even from the dead again, not that God would so bring him, may
be taken to imply that, in his mind, Abraham did entertain the
hope that matters would not be permitted to reach the worst
extremity, though even if they should, he accounted that God
was able to bring his son again from the dead. Still less should
we rely on Warburton's theory, in his famous discourse on this
subject in the "Divine Legation," that Abraham knew that
the transaction was a scenic representation of our redemption,
and that it had consequently no moral import; unless Abraham
"And now we see the weakness of the third and last part of the objection, which
supposes this command capable of affording a temptation to transgress the funda-
mental principles of the law of nature, one of which obliges us to cherish and protect
our offspring; and another, not to injure our neighbour. For as, by the command,
Abraham understood the nature of man's redemption: so by the nature of that
220
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
knew that the slaying was to be in mere show and not in
reality, the scenic character of the transaction does not relieve
it from any of its moral difficulties. A command actually to
slay one's son as a scenic representation of Christ's death would
be attended with the same moral difficulties, as to slay him
for any other end, expressed or unexpressed.
1.
IV. In connexion with the foregoing remarks, it will not be
amiss to notice here, that Bishop Colenso, who talks of human
sacrifice as having been at times frightfully prevalent amongst
the Israelites, alleges that "we have at least one 'statute' in
the Pentateuch which expressly enjoins human sacrifice !" The
statute on which he lays so much emphasis he finds in Lev.
xxvii. 28, 29, which in the English Version stands thus :-"No
devoted thing, that a man shall devote unto the Lord, of all
that he hath, both of man and beast, and of the field of his
possession, shall be sold or redeemed: every devoted thing
is most holy unto the Lord. None devoted, which shall be
devoted of men, shall be redeemed, but shall surely be put to
death." And the Bishop argues from the expression, "which
I commanded not," used by Jeremiah in reference to the burn-
ing of their sons for burnt offerings to Baal, that the people
must have alleged some such divine authority for the practice.
As regards the construction put on the passage in Leviticus,
the blame is partly due to the ambiguity of translations, and
the misconception of interpreters, some of whom have resorted
to various devices in order to evade the objectionable meaning
it was thought to suggest. Thus Junius and Tremellius supply
in v. 29, the word bestia, and render the phrase Tab
homine, instead of ex hominibus, by which they translate the
redemption, he must know how the scenical representation was to end. Isaac, he
saw, was made the person or representative of Christ dying for us: the Son of God,
he knew, could not possibly lie under the dominion of the grave. Hence he must
conclude one of these two things, either that God would stop his hand, when he came
to the sacrificing stroke: or that if the relation of this mystery was to be represented
throughout in action, that then his son, sacrificed under the person of Christ, was,
under the same person, soon to be restored to life.”—Divine Legation, B. vi. sect. 5.
1 Pt. v., p. 294.
THE OFFERING OF ISAAC.
221
2
DN of v. 28.1 Others suggest that either civil or natural
death is intended according to circumstances. And the Bishop
cites Keil and Delitzsch, as allowing that a private individual
might devote a person, as a child or a slave, in this manner,
but supposing that death was only to be inflicted in case the
devoted person should refuse to live the life of sanctification to
which he was set apart.
The writer, however, who took the view most in accordance
with the Bishop's interpretation was L. Cappellus, in his De
Voto Jephta Diatriba Singularis. He maintained that Jephthah
sacrificed his daughter under a vow made in accordance with
this passage in Leviticus, which Cappellus regarded as giving
parents or masters the power of thus devoting to death a child or
a slave. He supposed that this provision of the law had a typical
reference to Christ, who was devoted by his heavenly Father to
be made a curse for us by his death on the cross; while he
thought that it would act as a check on rash imprecations in mo-
ments of wrath, when men knew that a curse devoting to death
a child or a slave would be irrevocable. And he further sup-
posed that the law itself imposed a check on the making of such
rash vows, inasmuch as by Numb. xviii. 14, "Everything
devoted in Israel shall be thine," the priesthood had the power
to decide in what cases the vow was legitimate or not,—an ap-
plication of these words which is evidently quite foreign to their
true purport and intent, namely, the grant of whatever was
devoted to religious uses to the support or service of the priest-
hood.
The learned Selden replied to this Diatribe of Cappellus, in his
work De Jure Naturali et Gentium juxta Disciplinam Ebræorum.
1 Omnis bestia devota quæ devovetur ab homine, ne redimitor. The presence of
the article in this latter verse does not alter the meaning. It may be due to the stat.
constr. with the preposition fully expressed, this and other prepositions having been
doubtless originally substantives, and therefore frequently transferring an article to the
governed word. Or the article here may be generic, denoting mankind, as dis-
tinguished from cattle or other possessions.
2 Morietur, morte scil. vel naturali, vel civili (quâ abdicatur à negotiis, et cultui
Dei deputatur); juxta diversam materiam et conditionem rei.-Poole, Synopsis
Criticorum. Bonfrere, Cor. à Lapide, and Estius are cited as authorities for this gloss.
222
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
He lays down that there were four kinds of Cherem, four ways in
which objects were devoted by anathema. 1. The word was
used to denote the voluntary irrevocable devotion of any pos-
session to sacred uses, to which Lev. xxvii. 28 exclusively refers.
In regard to such gifts he shows that it was a rule of the Jewish
doctors that no one could devote in this way anything that was
not fully and absolutely in his own power, interpreting the
words, "of man," to denote Gentile slaves, who, except as
regarded their lives, were as fully under the dominion of
their masters as cattle or other possessions. These they might
devote to the service of the priests by an absolute and irre-
vocable gift. But as the law gave them no right over the life
of their slaves, much less of their children, apart from this
donation, the rule that they could bestow nothing that was not
their own rendered it impossible that by such a gift any person
might devote to death his child or his slave. 2. The second
kind of Cherem was when, by right of conquest or military law,
persons were devoted to destruction, and things treated as
accursed. An example of this is presented in the case of
Jericho, Josh. vi. 17, 18:-"The city shall be a Cherem, it and
all that is in it to the Lord.-And ye shall in anywise keep
yourselves from the Cherem, lest ye make yourselves a Cherem.
-And all the silver, and gold, and vessels of brass and iron are
consecrated to the Lord." To this kind of Cherem alone he
thinks that Lev. xxvii. 29 refers. But to prove the exclusive
reference of it to this kind, it is necessary to exclude the re-
maining two. 3. The third kind of anathema is exemplified in
the edict of Ezra (x. 8), that "whosoever would not come within
three days, according to the counsel of the princes and the
elders, all his substance should be made a Cherem, and himself
separated from the congregation." 4. The fourth sort of Cherem
was, when by a legal enactment persons or things were laid under
anathema in case they should hereafter be guilty of some trans-
gression, or had already done something thought worthy of such
a sentence. To this he refers Neh. xiii. 25:-"I contended with
THE OFFERING OF ISAAC.
223
them and cursed them, and made them swear by God, ye shall
not give your daughters unto their sons, nor take their daughters
unto your sons or for yourselves." He also classes under this
the curse pronounced by Joshua on any one that should rebuild
the city of Jericho. Now in reference to these two latter kinds
of anathema, which are nearly identical, he shows that, accord-
ing to the Jewish interpretations, they only extended to excom-
munication of persons and forfeiture of goods, and he positively
asserts that there is no trace of evidence of any one having been
put to death under them, much less that they were supposed to
sanction the voluntary devotion of any one to death by private
persons. If death was in any case the consequence of such a
sentence, it was to be regarded strictly in the character of punish-
ment legally inflicted, as for a crime committed, and that not by
the arbitrary act of private persons, but by public authority.
Returning now to the second kind of Cherem enumerated,
that by which the inhabitants of besieged cities were devoted
to destruction in case of capture, or fellow citizens thus de-
voted if guilty of violating military duty, Selden exemplifies
this on the one hand by the case of Jericho and Hormah, and
on the other by the destruction of the men of Jabesh-Gilead
by virtue of the oath that those who should not come up to the
Lord to Mizpeh should be put to death, Jud. xxi. 5, 10. To
this also he refers the case of Jonathan, when he unwittingly
fell under the curse pronounced by Saul on any who should
taste food until evening, 1 Sam. xiv. It was only to such
cases as these that the Jewish doctors supposed the precept in
Lev. xxvii. 29 to relate, the previous verse, as already mentioned,
having reference only to things dedicated to religious uses,
which were not to be put to death at all. It is plain, that
according to their view no provision whatever was made by this
Levitical law for any voluntary devotion of human beings to
death by way of sacrifice, or any devotion of persons to death
on any ground, except as punishment of crime or by right of
conquest or military law.
224
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
As regards the case of Jephthah's daughter, on which Bishop
Colenso relies as an example of human sacrifice under this law
according to his conception of its purport, Selden shows that
the Jewish doctors were divided, as to whether in fact she was
put to death at all. But he proves that they were all agreed
that, if she was sacrificed, there was no legal justification for
such a deed. Nor does the Scripture justify the act. The com-
mendation of Jephthah in Heb. xi. does not necessarily extend
to this transaction, or give any approval of it as regards its
moral character. The commendation has reference to his faith
and reliance on God, by the efficacy of which to impart extra-
ordinary energy, he, like others, was enabled to "subdue king-
doms." Possunt quia posse videntur.¹
The Jewish doctors must have felt that there was something
in the verbal character of the passage in Leviticus to justify the
interpretation which they put upon it. Let us see if we have
reason for thinking they were right in this belief. It is to be
observed that, as in the case of the word, to bless, the Greek
ἀνάθεμα or ἀνάθημα, and the Latin sacer, this word Cherem has
its good and its bad significations, and that in point of fact it is
never, at least in the Biblical usage, applied in its ill sense to
any of those lesser cases of excommunication enumerated by
Selden. It is invariably used either of something devoted
irrevocably to God's service, which is the good signification, or
something irrevocably accursed, and, in the case of living
beings, to be destroyed. And as the noun Cherem has thus its
double sense, so has also the cognate verb, which is only used in
the Hiphil and Hophal forms, D and D, to make and
to be made a Cherem, . It is further to be noted that this
verb, which is one of very frequent occurrence, has in every
instance of its use but one, apart from this passage in Leviticus,
the ill sense of devoting to destruction, or of actually destroying
utterly, except when the adjunct, "to the Lord," gives a special
1 Selden's discussion of this subject occupies chapters vi.-xi. of the fourth book of
his great work, De Jure Naturali et Gentium juxta Disciplinam Ebræorum.
THE OFFERING OF ISAAC.
225
T:
meaning to the word. The one instance in which the sense is
doubtful is in the edict of Ezra (x. 8), already mentioned, where
it is said, "all his substance, 7, shall be made a Cherem,'
This is rendered in the English Version by "forfeited."
The rendering of the LXX. is ἀναθηματισθήσεται, which is
ambiguous. And perhaps, considering the uniformity of the
usage otherwise, we should here render, "shall be accursed,"
the cattle and other goods to be destroyed, except the gold and
silver, and brazen and iron vessels, which should be brought
into the treasury of the Lord. The other signification of the
verb, that of devoting to religious uses, is determined by the
adjunct, "to the Lord," in Micah iv. 13:-" I will consecrate
their gain unto Jehovah, and their substance unto the Lord of
the whole earth." So also in Lev. xxvii. 28 we have this
adjunct :—“Every Cherem that a man shall consecrate to the
Lord of all that he hath, of man and beast, and of the field of
his possession, shall not be sold and shall not be redeemed;
every Cherem, it is holy of holies to the Lord." The Rabbis
perceived the force of this adjunct here, but as usual refined too
much in its application, thinking that it distinguished things
devoted specially to the use of the sanctuary from those which
were for the service of the priests. See Le Clerc, Comment.
in Pent. in loc. If we now pass on to . 29, we notice the
repetition of the prohibition to redeem, which would be
needless if this verse only referred to a special case of what
was more generally treated of in the verse preceding; the
absence of the adjunct, "to the Lord," which would in such
case have had as good reason to be repeated as the prohibi-
tion to redeem; and the omission of the subject, including
any private person, with the conversion of the verb into a
"1
1 It is true that in Josh. vi. 17, we find this adjunct : "The city shall be Cherem,
it and all that is in it to the Lord." The verb however is not here used, and the
extent to which the phrase "to the Lord" is limited is to be gathered from r. 19,
where it is said that" the silver, and gold, and vessels of brass and iron, shall be a holy
thing to the Lord." These, like the rest, were to be Cherem, in the sense of accursed,
as long as they were out of the Lord's treasury; as soon as they should be brought
into it, they should become Cherem, in the sense of things consecrated to sacred uses.
!
15
226
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
passive form.
All these differences, in connexion with the
double sense of the word Cherem and of the cognate verb, point
to a different subject: the previous verse prescribes a rule
relating to the Cherem, which should be consecrated to Jehovah;
the latter verse prescribes what should be done in the case of a
Cherem consisting of human beings who should be devoted to
destruction. These might not be redeemed, or delivered, as the
word here used signifies in a more general sense, but should
surely be put to death. This is confined to the case of men;
other things were not necessarily in all cases to be destroyed,
but if not destroyed, they then became a Cherem in the sense of
the previous verse, like the gold and silver of Jericho; and there
was therefore no necessity in regard to anything but men, to
make such a rule as is given in v. 29.¹ In this there is not the
slightest indication that the death prescribed was regarded as a
sacrifice to God, or that the devoting might be the act of a
private person. The change of expression removes all indication
that either was contemplated. It was God himself, or the rulers,
who devoted this kind of Cherem; and the prohibition of the
redemption or deliverance of the devoted victims would act as a
check on the practice on the part of the rulers, or of commanders
in war, who would be careful not to make a vow of this kind,
that could not be recalled, however they might desire its revoca-
tion, and who might else be tempted to make such vows in the
hope of extorting greater ransom. The practice was thus limited
to extreme and special cases.
There is nothing sacrificial implied in the expression, "before
the Lord," as used in the case of Samuel hewing Agag in
pieces, and of the hanging of the seven sons of Saul who were
given up at the desire of the Gibeonites. The expression only
denoted that the act was performed in obedience to a divine
command, or under a sense of religious duty. When David
1 Le Clerc, Comment. in loc., still further limits this verse to the case of enemies
devoted to death in time of war, as the law elsewhere prohibited the redemption of
criminals liable to capital punishment.
THE OFFERING OF ISAAC.
227
asked the Gibeonites, " Wherewith shall I make an atonement,
that ye may bless the inheritance of the Lord ?" the atonement
was plainly to be made to them and not to God. Hence they
decline silver and gold, as a compensation to atone for the wrong
they had suffered. And when they said they would hang up
the sons of Saul "unto the Lord," they considered that their
lives were forfeited to God by the deeds of Saul and of his
bloody house. The slaying in such cases was regarded as a
punishment which God exacted, and was therefore said to be
done to the Lord;" and God's anger was supposed to
be appeased, when the crime was thus expiated. Under the
theocratic government all capital punishment, and especially
in the case of murder, was considered as an expiation due to
God. We ourselves, who are far enough from all thought of
human sacrifice, also speak of a murderer as expiating his crime
on the scaffold. But in neither case is this a sacrifice, in the
sense of a creature slain as an act of religious worship, and as a
means of supplicating the divine favour.
(6
If the expression, "which I did not command," used in re-
ference to the offering of the children in the fire to Baal, or Moloch,
had really arisen from the allegation of a divine command sup-
posed to have been given in Lev. xxvii. 29, the repudiation of any
such command must plainly have proceeded on the ground that
the construction of the precept was such as to warrant the dis-
claiming of it, as a perversion of the precept. But in truth
the expression had no reference to any such supposed command.
It may be compared with St. Paul's manner of speaking in
reference to the fruits of the Spirit in Gal. v. 22, 23:—“ Against
such there is no law,"-his meaning being that these virtues
were in the strongest sense enjoined. So too the expression,
The family of Saul are included in the guilt of blood, whether any of his
sons had share in the crime against the Gibeonites or not. It is to be remembered
that under the theocratic government the visiting the sins of the fathers upon the
children, which always more or less takes place in the ordinary course of Providence,
had a more direct and distinctly recognised place, though the law prohibited the
children to be put to death for the sins of the fathers, Deut. xxiv. 16, 2 Kings, xiv.
5, 6. This was reserved to God himself.
228
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
"which I did not command," is in more than one instance
used idiomatically as an equivalent to "which I expressly
forbad." Thus in Lev. x. 1, Nadab and Abihu "offered
strange fire before the Lord, which he did not command them,"
the reference being to the prohibition against offering strange
incense in Exod. xxx. 9. Also in Deut. xvii. 3, the expression,
"which I have not commanded," is used in reference to serving
other gods, the prohibition in the First Commandment being
plainly in view. And in this case also of offering the children
in the fire there was a like express prohibition in Lev. xviii. 21,
to which the words under consideration plainly refer.
On the whole there was doubtless much in the way in which
human life was dealt with in the practice of the Israelites, and
under the sanction of a divine dispensation, that belonged to an
order of things very foreign to the refined sentiment of modern
times, and abhorrent to Christian feeling. The degree of sanc-
tion which this received under the theocratic government should
be viewed rather as a yielding, as in other particulars, to the
circumstances and inveterate habits of a lower stage of civilisa-
tion, than an absolute divine approval. For nothing was more
strongly resented by the law of Moses than the shedding of
innocent blood; "for blood, it defileth the land, and for the
land there shall be no expiation for the blood that is shed in it,
but by the blood of him that shed it," Numb. xxxv. 33. We
know also how David was not permitted to build the temple,
because he had been a man of blood. When we consider, how-
ever, the sanguinary dispositions of men in the earlier stages
of civilisation, the bloody character of ancient warfare, and the
ruthless vengeance of the conquerors, it may perhaps be thought
that it was in the interests of humanity, and with a view to the
diminution of bloodshed, that the destruction of life, which was.
to so great an extent unavoidable, should be restrained within
such limits as might be fixed by a divine command, or only
permitted in cases in which religious sanctions might be pleaded
for its justification. It thus became, at least in theory, not the
JACOB'S FAREWELL ADDRess.
229
indulgence of private passions, but the solemn performance of a
grave public duty. In judging of ancient times in respect to this
matter we must remember that though the savage nature in our-
selves has been subdued by Christianity and its accompanying
civilisation, it has not been extinguished. How ready it is to
revive, when circumstances awaken it, may be seen not only in
the horrible deeds of cruelty and murder that are from time to
time revealed in our criminal courts, but also in the horrors of
the sacking of a captured town, the dreadful crimes of a rebellion
or revolution, and even the lengths to which those who are en-
gaged in the lawful suppression of rebellion are carried by the
excitement of the moment,-excesses of which they are them-
selves ashamed when the danger is past.
CHAPTER XLIX. 1-28.
JACOB'S FAREWELL ADDRESS TO THE PATRIARCHS.
I. THE last words of Jacob addressed to his twelve sons have
been made the occasion of an argument for the late authorship
of the part of the book in which they are contained. The
argument is framed by showing how true to fact on the whole
these predictive sayings are found, and by pointing out a time
at which they were all simultaneously more or less exactly
verified, if not for the first time, at least then in a greater
degree and a fuller sense than previously. This, which at a
former period would have been thought a good proof of the
true prophetic character of the sayings, is now made a proof
that they were composed at, or soon after, the time when they
were so well verified. And it is supposed to establish this on
the assumption that a seeming prediction, if consistent with
facts, must be really a vaticinium post eventum, history put into
this form, whether to deceive, or merely to follow an understood
custom of the times. Of course, if it is proved that such a
custom existed, and that its adoption was, if not indicated on
the face of the document itself, at any rate clearly understood
by those for whose use it was intended, there can be no objec-
230
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
tion made on moral grounds to such a practice, and we should
have in any particular case only to consider what evidence there
might be that the custom was followed in that instance. An
historical romance, as such, is a legitimate composition even on
moral grounds. The adoption of this form of composition,
however, when it is intended to deceive the reader, is not
morally defensible; and it seems difficult to clear the Biblical
writings from blame in this respect, on the theory that those
apparent predictions with which they abound, were first written
post eventum. If, on the other hand, true prediction, true not
merely in its accordance with the facts to which it relates, but
as written or spoken before the time of those events, exists at
all in the Bible, one seeming prediction may be as truly a real
prophecy as another, except when there exist special grounds
for viewing it in a different light. Merely to treat a seeming
prophecy as history put into this form, because its apparent
predictions are verified in fact, is in reality to deny the exis-
tence or possibility of any such prediction; and such a principle,
if adopted at all, must be applied equally to all cases, to the
Christian, as well as to the Old Testament Scriptures. If such
a general application of the principle is impossible, then it is
arbitrary and uncritical to adopt it in any particular case,
merely to support a theory which necessitates its assumption.
If it is proved otherwise, for example, that this book of Genesis
was written so late as the reign of David, then of course it
follows that the prophetic character is only pretended. But
it is reasoning wholly in a circle to argue back again from the
assumed non-prophetic character to the late origin of the book.
That the simultaneousness of the fulfilment of the predictions
in Gen. xlix. for the first time, in their fullest development, at
the period supposed for the date of the book, if truly made out,
would not add to the weight of the argument, is plain. It was
in any case to be expected, that the age of the nation's glory,
of its first bloom in its collective character, and of its first
triumph over its enemies generally, would be the period of the
JACOB'S FAREWELL ADDRESS.
231
1
first full and clear verification of the predicted circumstances
of the several tribes. That there was a previous verification,
and that in a striking degree in some cases, is however by no
means disproved.
It is not, indeed, to be imagined that the dying Patriarch
uttered his vaticinations in the exact form in which they appear
in this document. The poetical character of the composition,
exemplified in the versification, in the use of poetical forms and
manners of expression, and in the highly lyrical key to which
the whole is tuned, forbids our supposing it at all probable that
Jacob uttered the sayings in such a form. But the traditional
oracular sayings preserved by the people, whether in writing or
orally, may have in time been thrown into this poetical form,
as part of the popular songs, or they may have been gathered
up by the author of the book, and put by him into this form, as
being the regular form into which all Scriptural prophecy was
habitually thrown. All that the most decided advocate of the
true prophetic character of the sayings, and of the genuineness
of these oracles as ascribed to Jacob, could require, is that they
preserve and embody the substance of what he really said,
however different in form from his actual words they may be
thought.
The ancient classical historians, indeed, claimed to themselves
considerable liberty as regards the speeches which they attributed
to those whom they introduced into their narratives. Still this
liberty was restrained within the bounds of reason and proba-
bility. Lucian, in his treatise on the art of writing history, says
that when there is occasion to introduce any one speaking, the
greatest care must be taken to make him say what is in accordance
with his character and suitable to the occasion; but that at the
same time the historian is allowed within these limits to display
his rhetorical skill.' Thucydides appears to have restricted
1 Πῶς δεῖ συγγράφειν, Cap. Iviii.Ἢν δέ ποτε καὶ λόγους ἐροῦντά τινα δεήσῃ
εἰσάγειν, μάλιστα μὲν ἐοικότα τῷ προσώπῳ καὶ τῷ πράγματι οἰκεῖα λεγέσθω, ἔπειτα
ὡς σαφέστατα καὶ ταῦτα, πλὴν ἐφεῖταί σοι τότε καὶ ῥητορεῦσαι καὶ ἐπιδεῖξαι τὴν τῶν
λόγων δεινότητα.
232
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
himself to still narrower limits. In the case of speeches made
preparatory to the war, or during its progress, when he was
unable to recollect exactly those which he heard himself, or to
obtain an exact report of others, he allowed himself, it is true,
to compose speeches for those whose words he had to record;
but in such case he tells us, he was always careful to keep as
close as possible to what appeared to have been the general
purport of the speaker's words. There are, indeed, cases in
which the circumstances themselves indicate what, in substance
at least, certain persons must have said; and in such cases the
natural eloquence which characterises things said on momentous
occasions is a sufficient warrant to the historian to exercise his
skill, in giving to these speeches such a measure of rhetorical
character, as does not exceed the bounds of probability. But
plainly, in any case it is not allowed to the historian to insist
on the accuracy of these speeches beyond their general purport,
or expressly to attribute the form as well as the substance to the
speakers. More especially would this not be allowable when
the form is peculiar, as for instance, when the sayings are, as
often happens in the Bible, thrown into verse. Thus, for
instance, in Judges v. 1, it is not merely said that Deborah and
Barak spake, but "sang," the song that follows, whereby it is
plainly asserted that their words of triumph had been thrown
from the first into a poetical form. This is not said in the case
of Jacob's words in Gen. xlix., and it is enough that we should
suppose the general purport of his sayings on that occasion, how-
ever preserved, has been presented in the poetical form in which
they are there recorded. Unless the entire was understood to
be a non-historical narrative, with such measure of actual facts
as may have chanced to be introduced, but with no pretensions.
to be regarded as a true history, which there is no reason to
1 Καὶ ὅσα μὲν λόγῳ εἶπον ἕκαστοι, ἢ μέλλοντες πολεμήσειν ἢ ἐν αὐτῷ ἤδη ὄντες,
χαλεπὸν τὴν ἀκρίβειαν αὐτὴν τῶν λεχθέντων διαμνημονεῦσαι ἦν, ἐμοί τε ὧν αὐτὸς
ἤκουσα καὶ τοῖς ἄλλοθέν ποθεν ἐμοὶ ἀπαγγέλλουσιν· ὡς δ᾽ ἂν ἐδόκουν ἐμοὶ ἕκαστοι περὶ
τῶν ἀεὶ παρόντων τὰ δέοντα μάλιστ᾽ εἰπεῖν ἐχομένῳ ὅτι ἐγγύτατα τῆς ξυμπάσης
γνώμης τῶν ἀληθῶς λεχθέντων, οὕτως εἴρηται. 1. 22.
JACOB'S FAREWELL ADDRESS.
233
suppose was the case, we must accept the prophetic character
of the present passage, at least as regards the general purport
of the recorded sayings. We may now pass to the more par-
ticular consideration of such of these sayings as have occasioned
special remark.
II. The case of Reuben suggests no question attended with
any kind of difficulty. The Patriarch is represented as first
magnifying the dignity of Reuben's primogeniture, and then
contrasting with it his grievous misconduct, by reason of which
he is deprived of the privilege of his birthright. The descrip-
tion of his character, which in the English Version appears as
"unstable as water," should properly be rendered, as by the
LXX., "boiling over as water." It expresses an impulsive
and passionate character, strongly exhibited in his misconduct,
and also manifested in his words to Jacob, xlii. 37, "Slay my
two sons if I bring him not to thee.". This exuberance of cha-
racter might naturally have aided him in holding his place as
the firstborn; but for his offence his father displaces him.
"Boiling over as water, thou shalt not excel, because thou
wentest up to thy father's bed." The word rendered "excel,"
in tothar, refers to the "excellency (yether) of dignity
and excellency of strength," in the previous verse.
This pre-
eminence, to which he was entitled by his birth, is taken from
him for his crime. It is needless to go into the subsequent
history of the tribe, except to remark that it never took the
lead on any important occasion, and on one momentous occasion
failed to come to the aid of the other tribes, as mentioned in the
Song of Deborah. The prayer for this tribe in the Song of
Moses, Deut. xxxiii. 6, seems to imply a presaging of decay.
"Let Reuben live and not die, and let his people be a number;
-let him at least have a number, though not a very great
number, as the rather disparaging word used implies. There
is no occasion for supplying the not of the English Version from
the preceding clause. The LXX. do not indeed seem to have
regarded the word as necessarily implying a small
234
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
number; for they translate, καὶ ἔστω πολὺς ἐν ἀριθμῷ. The
Alexandrian copy of the LXX. indeed takes a different course,
introducing "Simeon" as the subject of this clause, and thus
supplying the deficiency as regards that tribe in the Song
of Moses as otherwise preserved.
III. From Reuben the Patriarch proceeds to Simeon and
Levi. They had been united in an act of violence, which he
strongly condemns, and he pronounces that he will divide them
in Jacob and scatter them in Israel.
First, as regards Levi, their dispersion throughout the land
in the cities of the Levites is in accordance with this sentence,
as far as the literal fact is concerned. But what has evidently
a penal character in the sentence ascribed to the Patriarch,
appears as a blessing and reward in the Song of Moses and
elsewhere. Or at least this latter confers on Levi the privilege
and blessing of the priesthood, which involved the dispersion,
in reward for the conduct of this tribe in transactions which it
is not necessary here to discuss.
was
The Bishop of Natal insists that the blessing of Moses
composed at a much later period, at a time when the tribe of
Levi was really held in high esteem and honour, and was com-
posed, perhaps, by one who was himself a Levite and a priest.
Whereas in the time of the Jehovist, their condition, apparently,
was as low, and their position as insignificant, as the words
before us imply." The words, however, do not necessarily
imply any insignificance, but simply the dispersion of this
tribe, instead of its settlement in a separate territory like the
others. The difficulty does not lie in the supposed insignificance
thus implied, but in the fact that the dispersion is regarded as
penal, and the improbability that any one writing after the
attainment of the sacerdotal dignity by this tribe should have
invented the penal sentence put into the Patriarch's mouth.
But this is a difficulty only to those, who like the Bishop, insist
on the late fabrication of the entire story; it is no difficulty at
1 Pentateuch and Joshua, Pt. v., p. 147.
•
JACOB'S FAREWELL ADDRESS.
235
all in the way of those who regard the words ascribed to Jacob
as the bonâ fide report, in substance at least, of his last address
to his assembled sons. To Levi himself the failure of his
descendants to attain the position of a territorial tribe, in
his ignorance of any compensating privilege, would have had
a truly penal character; and yet that circumstance may have
subsequently assumed a very different character to his descen-
dants, in connexion with their position in other respects, though
in itself a disadvantage always, and a possible cause of jealousy
and unfavourable comparison. Nothing in the course of
human affairs is more common than that a circumstance, which
to a man himself, and, in his view, to his posterity also, is a
great disadvantage, and being due to his own misconduct a great
punishment, should come to be regarded by those who descend
from him in a very different light, either on its own account,
or in connexion with other circumstances that entirely alter its
character. The Bishop feels this difficulty, for he says, "It
seems impossible that any one-at least, any pious writer—
living after the age of Moses, should have expressed himself
thus about the Levites, if the books of Leviticus and Numbers
had been in existence in his time, and their laws in operation
to any extent." We need not insist on the impossibility alleged
by the Bishop, except as regards the piety of the writer, and
that in a different point of view, but we certainly may on the
great improbability, on the supposition that the writer was
simply inventing the words ascribed to the Patriarch. But if
we regard him as reporting substantially, though not in form
and in the literal exactness of a verbal transcript, the sayings
of Jacob, in whatever manner transmitted, the difference affords
a strong indication of the writer's good faith. The Bishop,
however, thinks it necessary to prove that the tribe of Levi was
not invested at all with the sacerdotal dignity during the
earlier times of the national history, not, in fact, until after the
latter part of David's reign, when he supposes this chapter
of Genesis was written. As usual, in the absence of positive
236
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
indications favourable to his views, he relies on the argument
ab silentio. His first reference in this line of argument is to
the absence of Levi from the Song of Deborah, who he thinks
cannot be conceived to have omitted all reference to priest or
Levite, ark or tabernacle, if these institutions existed and were
highly esteemed at the time she is alleged to have written.
But as other tribes are not mentioned in that song, because
their situation rendered it impossible for them to have taken
part in the proceedings to which it relates, so the very fact that
the Levites were a class of men dispersed in various parts of the
country, and so incapable as a tribe of giving any assistance in
this hurried expedition, would sufficiently account for there being
no mention of them in a poem which confines itself to those who
took part, or ought to have taken part, in it. He remarks that
the Levites as a tribe are never once mentioned in the book of
Judges. It is true they are not mentioned as acting in the col-
lective character of a tribe. The very circumstance of their dis-
persion would render this improbable. But then we have mention
of two persons as Levites, which clearly shows that, in whatever
position, they had a tribal character. And the first of these,
mentioned in Judges xvii. and xviii., though at first roaming
about in search of employment, was plainly regarded as qualified
for a priestly office, and found employment in such an office, first
with Micah, and afterwards with the Danites. The idolatrous
practices with which he mixed himself up were only in ac-
cordance with the evil tendencies of the times; but it is plain
that his being a Levite was regarded as his qualification for
the employment he found. The Bishop indeed supposes that in
Micah's words, "Now I know that Jehovah will do me good, see-
ing I have the Levite to my priest," the use of the article shows
that no importance was attached to his being a Levite, and that
he would have said the same of a Simeonite vagabond that
might have come to hire himself for the same office. The
article it is true is merely an article of reference. But it is
plain from the whole story that the reason why he expected a
M
JACOB'S FAREWELL ADDRESS.
237
G
benefit from God was his having a Levite. For be it observed,
he had first consecrated one of his own sons to be a priest, and
he made no proposition to the Levite to take his son's place
until he heard that he was a Levite. And though he had the
services of his son in this capacity already, he thought it worth
his while to give this man his living and a salary to secure his
services; and then no reason can be imagined for expecting a
divine blessing, but the fact that it was a Levite he had now
got. Had he no priest at all before, there might be some reason
in the Bishop's inference, but now his expectation must be
built upon the difference between this man and his own son.
That difference was the Levitical birth and character of his new
priest. The Bishop seems to think that the stress lay on his
consecration; but this could have been no different consecra-
tion, as effected by Micah, from that which had already taken
place in the case of his son. Each was similarly consecrated,
and the expected blessing could not therefore have been anti-
cipated from the consecration, but plainly from the Levitical
origin of the person whom he had now got for a priest in place
of his son who was not of the sacerdotal caste. The other
Levite mentioned in xix. and xx. was going to the house of the
Lord when he came to Gibeah. It is true, indeed, this might
have been, like Elkanah's periodical visit, for private devotion.
Still we have the fact that Levites were living in various parts
of the country, but not merged in the tribes within the territory
of which they resided. And at the same time Phineas, the son of
Eleazer, the son of Aaron, was exercising the office of high
priest at Shiloh, while to him resort was made to inquire of the
Lord, according to the words of the Song of Moses, "Let thy
Thummim and thy Urim be with thy holy one." Thus we find
the tribe of Levi invested with the sacerdotal functions in their
different orders at the earliest period after the final settlement
in the land of Canaan of which we have any account; and how-
ever depressed their condition may at times have been, their
dispersion in Israel was, from their first entrance into the land,
238
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
connected with this dignity, and could not have been regarded
in the purely penal light in which it is treated in the last words
of Jacob, at any period subsequent to the settlement in the land
of Canaan.
As regards Simeon, the dispersion of his descendants was of
a somewhat different kind. At first this tribe obtained a settle-
ment within the district already assigned to Judah, this latter
tribe being unable to occupy it entirely. Hence we find that
Judah and Simeon were conjoined in an expedition against the
Canaanites (Jud. i. 3-17), their proximity doubtless making
them have common interests, and greater facilities for joint
action. It is probable, indeed, that a great many Simeonites
became dispersed in the cities of Judah, for at the time of the
separation of the two kingdoms we read (2 Chron. x. 17) that
the children of Israel that dwelt in the cities of Judah con-
tinued subject to Rehoboam. Some of these were doubtless
Levites, but there must have been some of other tribes, or at
least of another tribe, and from situation, these were probably
Simeonites. But there were also Simeonites that fell to Jero-
boam, for afterwards we read in 2 Chron. xv. 9 that strangers
from Ephraim, Manasseh, and Simeon, in great abundance re-
volted again to Asa, and these, as having been strangers, pro-
bably came now to reside in the Jewish territory. Then in the
days of Hezekiah there were Simeonites still in the land, who
had escaped the Assyrian captivity. A large migration of these
took possession of Hamite territory, and another body of five
hundred exterminated the remnant of the Amalakites, and
dwelt in their places, as related in 1 Chron. iv. 39 seqq. Thus,
considering how few the notices of the tribe of Simeon are in
the entire history, they appear to have been sufficiently divided
to satisfy the prediction ascribed to Jacob, though in a less
marked degree than in the case of Levi. It is also to be con-
sidered that the prediction, to some extent at any rate, refers to
the separation of Levi and Simeon from one another. They
had been united in violent counsels and transactions, but would
be parted from one another in their subsequent history.
JACOB'S FAREWELL ADDRESS.
239
The disappearance of Simeon from the Song of Moses, or else
his original absence from it, is certainly remarkable. The
Alexandrian Codex of the LXX. is free from this deficiency.
Its reading, and it is no mean authority, is, Zýtw 'Povßǹv, kai
μὴ ἀποθανέτω· καὶ Συμεὼν ἔστω πολὺς ἐν ἀριθμῷ1 If it was
originally absent from the Hebrew, the supposition that the tribe
had disappeared from Israel at the late period to which some
critics assign this composition, is still perfectly arbitrary and un-
warranted. There is not the slightest evidence of its having thus
disappeared. On the contrary, we find Simeonites after the As-
syrian captivity. In 1 Chron. iv. 38 they had greatly increased
in numbers, and doubtless it was this increase that occasioned
the migrations in Hezekiah's time. Moreover, even if this tribe
had ceased to exist as a tribe at the time supposed, the author
of the song was well aware that such a tribe had existed in the
days of Moses, and would scarcely have been guilty of an over-
sight that has been thought to betray the late period of its com-
position. It is difficult also to explain the absence of this tribe
from the song, if written at an earlier period, though some have
supposed that at that time this tribe was under the special dis-
pleasure of Moses, on account of the conduct of Zimri, a prince
of the Simeonites, in the matter of Peor, and in the matter of
Cozbi.
IV. We now arrive at the vaticination of Judah's greatness.
It resolves itself into three principal parts, the first describing
the military glory and prowess of the tribe, and the last the
fertility of its territory. These have not given rise to much
discussion or difference of opinion; it is the second particular
of the predicted greatness, that relating to the possession of the
sceptre, and particularly its final clause, in which Shiloh is
named, that has during the last century been the subject of
contention. The weak point of the previous modes of interpre-
tation has been the failure of all attempts to explain the name
of Shiloh, as a proper name or otherwise, with any degree of
1 Grabe's Septuagint, Deut. xxxiii. 6.
240
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
certainty or unanimity. The modern way of interpreting,
“until he come to Shiloh," free as it is from this difficulty,
is yet attended with the gravest difficulties of a different kind.
Foremost amongst these is the mention of this as the terminus ad
quem of the sovereignty intended. The entire description seems
plainly to refer to the condition of Judah in the promised land.
Indeed it is doing great violence to the whole, to separate any
of its parts from the concluding account of the fertility of the
Jewish territory, described as this is in v. 11, 12 in the closest
grammatical connexion with the particular which has been the
subject of disagreement. Yet the arrival at Shiloh is only the
period of the very commencement of Judah's possession of that
territory. Moreover up to this time Judah was in no respect
distinguished for prowess above other tribes, had no kind of
sovereignty over any of the others, and so far was not dis-
tinguished from any other tribes in retaining its internal self-
government. As a prediction the words would be futile, and as a
vaticinium post eventum, still more improbable. Indeed it seems
inconceivable that a person writing at the time of Judah's greatest
prosperity, with the manifest intention of glorifying that tribe
beyond all the rest, should have dated back the terminus ad
quem of the glory described to so early a period, or indeed to
any preceding time. For though it is true the words rendered
"until" do not forbid the continued existence of the matter
described beyond the terminus specified, they certainly abstract
from all such subsequent existence, and confine the reader's
thoughts to the limit expressed. And this at least suggests
the possibility of subsequent failure, and in such a case as the
present, would have had the force of a presage of decay, which
in the circumstances supposed would have been a most im-
probable thing for such a writer to suggest. It may be added
that there was no particular sense in which Judah could have
been said to have come to Shiloh. This place was not within
the territory of that tribe, but belonged to its great rival
Ephraim; the worship of Jehovah there established was under
JACOB'S FAREWELL ADDRESS.
241
the administration of another tribe, while "of Judah Moses
spake nothing concerning priesthood; " and Joshua, the leader
of the Israelites when they arrived at Shiloh, and fixed the
tabernacle there, was also of a different tribe. It is impossible,
therefore, to conceive a poorer, less appropriate, and more un-
likely terminus to have been chosen for this prediction, whether
such in reality, or subsequently composed; and in this latter
case it is still more improbable than in the former. It is true
that Gesenius,¹ s.v.
in order to evade this difficulty,
suggests that the clause might be rendered “So long as they go
to Shiloh." But this is only a desperate attempt, unwarranted
by any usage of the formy, and therefore quite arbitrary.
Besides, on the supposition of the composition of this passage in
the latter part of David's reign, the difficulty remains in its full
force. God had already "forsaken the tabernacle of Shiloh.”
The ark was now in Zion, and Judah no longer went to Shiloh.
The structure of the passage is also greatly unfavourable
to this interpretation, not simply because the pronoun and pre-
position are absent, which it is freely admitted the genius of the
language would sanction, but because they are not expressed in
this case, under circumstances that would naturally have made
the writer express them, if they had been in his mind. It will
be seen that throughout the preceding part, when the verb and
its subject are both expressed, the subject always follows the
verb. Thus we have, "Judah, thou! shall praise thee thy
brethren,―shall bow down to thee the sons of thy father," in
v. 8; and then in v. 10, "shall not depart the sceptre from
Judah, and (shall not depart) a lawgiver from between his feet,
until shall come Shiloh."2 Considering the prevalence in the
passage of this arrangement, and the force of the parallelism, if
the reader could possibly give any better meaning to Shiloh, than
the city so named, he would naturally make it the subject of
¹ [See" Heb. and Eng. Lexicon, edited with improvements from the German works
of Gesenius," by Gibbs. It is on this authority I ascribe the suggestion to Gesenius; it
has, at any rate, been adopted by others of the same school.]
2 We subjoin here the entire passage in as exact conformity with the original, both
16
242
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
the verb; and the writer would similarly, if he meant to alter
the arrangement and to avoid mistake, have felt the necessity
of introducing either the pronoun before the verb, or a preposi-
tion before Shiloh. Some indeed insist that the position of the
pronoun in the subsequent clause, "to him shall be the obedience
of the people," suggests in accordance with the Hebrew paral-
lelism a like position for the word to which it refers, and so
calls for the introduction of the pronoun in the interpretation.
of the preceding clause. But if there is any force in this argu-
ment drawn from the Hebrew parallelism, it tells with three-fold
or four-fold weight in the opposite direction, in consequence of
the previous arrangement of the verbs and their subjects. Hence
the older interpreters, differing as they do in the meaning
assigned to Shiloh, have with a singular unanimity agreed in
making it the subject of the verb. Nor have they failed in
assigning more than one probable explanation of the word,
however uncertain we may feel in coming to a positive conclu-
sion. The explanation adopted by several of the Rabbis, and
amongst modern interpreters by Luther and Calvin, which
makes the last syllable of Shiloh the poetical pronominal affix,
his, has in its favour the occurrence of this affix twice after-
wards, as noted below, and in each case, as here, at the end of a
clause, no doubt for fulness of breathing and to sustain the voice
in the position of the words and otherwise, as the English language will allow; the
pronoun and preposition supplied by modern interpreters in the clause relating to
Shiloh are enclosed in italics
66
Judah, thou! shall praise thee thy brethren,
Thine hand on the neck of thine enemies,
Shall bow down to thee the sons of thy father.
A whelp of a lion, Judah!
From the prey, my son, thou hast gone up;
He couched, he lay down as a lion,
And as a lioness, who shall raise him up?
Shall not depart the sceptre from Judah,
And a lawgiver from between his feet,
Until [he] shall come [to] Shiloh, (aff. †?)
And to him the obedience of peoples.
Binding to the vine his ass-colt, (aff. )
And to the choice vine the foal of his she-ass,
He washed in wine his garment,
And in blood of grapes his dress; (aff. )
Red in the eyes from wine,
White in the teeth from milk."
JACOB'S FAREWELL ADDRESS.
243
66
at the close of the verse. The sense, “his offspring," the promised
seed, would be to the heart's content of the advocates of the
Messianic application of the passage. But, unfortunately, the
Hebrew language presents no instance of the word in this
sense of proles. There is indeed what might be regarded as a
kindred word,, which the lexicons explain, as in the
margin of the English Version of Deut. xxviii. 57, by "the
afterbirth.” In this only instance of its occurrence in the
Bible, it can scarcely mean that, but denotes the offspring
itself. It is absurd to speak of a woman's eye being evil to
what is expressed by the word in the sense assigned to it, and
that in connexion with her husband, and her son, and her
daughter, and her children that she shall bear. Plainly the eye
being evil denotes the grudging of food, and requires a person
for its object. This is clearly the meaning of the expression
in v. 54, as in Deut. xv. 9; elsewhere also an evil eye denotes a
grudging disposition. In v. 54, 55, the man grudges to his
wife and children share of the children he eats; and similarly
in v. 56, 57, the woman grudges her husband, and her children
enumerated in every variety of age and sex, share of the like
food; for she too is to eat them, that is, some of them, as the
man in v. 55. Hence the English Version, in the text, has "her
young one that cometh out from between her feet;" and some
copies of the LXX. have, not χόριον, but τὸ κόριον αὐτῆς, “ her
little girl," following the feminine termination of the word.
Reference is also made to an Arabic word Shalil, with the same
signification." Gesenius also mentions this amongst the sup-
posed meanings of the word; but he represents the sense thus
attributed to the clause to be," so long as the latest posterity."
To render the clause, "as long as his offspring shall come,"
(6
ΤΟ
1 Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, s.v. Shiloh. See in Buxtorf's Lexicon Hebrai-
cum et Chaldaicum, the opinions of Aben Esra, Jonathan the Chaldee Paraphrast,
and R. Bechai, in favour of this explanation. The first refers to the use of the verb
n in 2. Kings, iv. 28,
n, which he renders, Ne facias ut pariam
liberos. R. Bechai refers to Deut. xxviii. 57, and says that this peculiar word is used
by Jacob to intimate se de Messiù peculiariter loqui. Arias Montanus has parvulam
suam in Deut. xxviii. 57.
T T
244
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
would involve, however, the mistranslation of already
noticed.
The Bishop of Natal¹ supposes that the words in the
"blessing of Moses," Deut. xxxiii. 7, "Bring him unto his
people," has plain reference to the clause, "To him the obedience
of peoples," in the words of Jacob, and show that it is Judah
and not the Messiah that is here spoken of. The reference is
only apparent on the surface. In the words of Jacob, peoples,
evidently more than his own people, are to be obedient, whether
to Judah or to Shiloh; in the "blessing of Moses," the prayer
is that he might have the full number of his own population.
Already he had the largest population of all the tribes, and that
a still greater number was anticipated for him is evident from
the assignment to him of a territory which he was not able to
people, and into which the tribe of Simeon was afterwards
received.
V. The description of the maritime dwelling of Zebulun
has caused considerable embarrassment to the critics of the
present day. An inconsistency between an oracular saying,
uttered before the time to which it refers, and the subsequent
facts, would of course be in favour of the views of those who
deny a true prophetic element in the Biblical writings. But
as the numerous instances of agreement require that this and
other like documents should, if not truly prophetic, be regarded
as written after the events described, an inconsistency with the
facts is an awkward circumstance. A person composing a sub-
sequent description in a prophetic form would take care to avoid
any such inconsistency, and with this view would allude only to
such particulars as he felt sure were true in fact. To suppose
therefore, that in the present case, the author, writing at a late
period in the reign of David, was under a false impression as to
the true situation and circumstances of the tribes at a little
distance from Judæa implies not only an improbable ignorance,
but a want of art not to be expected in one capable of such a
1 Pt. v. p. 128.
:
}
JACOB'S FAREWELL ADDRESS.
245
composition. Fifty or sixty miles in a country united under one
sovereign would not be such a distance as to give rise to ignorance
of this kind, more especially as the frequent military assemblages
must have brought people of different tribes together, to say
nothing of the resort from all parts to the central places of
divine worship. The difficulty, however, seems to have no real
existence, whether the saying be regarded as uttered before or
after the time to which it relates. First, we will give the
words in as exact agreement as possible with the Hebrew
original:-
66
"Zebulun at a haven of seas shall dwell,
Even he, at a haven of ships,
And his side upon Zidon."
Now both the part of the Song of Moses relating to Zebulun,
and the description of the territory allotted to this tribe in
Joshua xix., alike connect Zebulun with the sea.
In the Song
of Moses Zebulun is joined with the adjacent tribe of Issachar
in some lucrative maritime trade :—
They shall suck the abundance of the seas,
And the treasures hid in the sea-sand."
But as Issachar certainly had not any contact with the sea, on
the side of Gennesareth or of the Mediterranean, an easy access
to the sea, and the pursuit of maritime engagements rendered
possible thereby, is all that can be proved by this reference.¹
Perhaps the word used in Gen. xlix. to express Zebulun's
dwelling by the sea, , literally "shall pitch tents," or
"encamp," is intended to express a resort to the sea outside the
limits of the settled territory of the tribe. Then, if we look to
the account of this territory in Joshua xix. we find that its
"border went up to the sea-ward," and that it reached to the
river that is before Jokneam. This is the river Kishon, just
near the southern extremity of Carmel, at which, at a distance
of a few miles, say about ten, there was an exit round Carmel
to the shore, the inland side of Carmel being the boundary of
'So in the Song of Moses, "Rejoice Zebulun in thy going out."
246
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
Asher. If now we look to Josephus, we shall find that he gives
to Zebulun the land contiguous to Carmel and the sea, while the
territory extended eastwards as far as the lake of Gennesareth.¹
The land beyond Carmel he assigns to Asher, while on the
other side Manasseh reached as far as Dor on the sea. This
being a Philistine city, it is probable that the tribe of Manasseh
did not extend northwards beyond this on the coast, and there is
the small space beyond it at the foot of Carmel left to Zebulun,
and doubtless ultimately occupied by that tribe, if not part of its
original lot. There really seems no difficulty in this part of the
words ascribed to Jacob; but the final clause, "his side upon
Zidon," is not so clear. To connect the land of Zebulun in any
way with Sidonian territory is quite out of the question. The
words, however, are capable of another explanation, and may be
intended to describe a coasting trade along the shores of the
Phoenician country. This in a general way was called Sidon,
the city of Zarephath being called in 1 Kings xvii. a city
of Sidon. There is not, at any rate, the least ground for the
positive assertion of the Bishop of Natal, "It is plain that to
Zebulun is here assigned a portion of territory which in Josh.
xix. is ascribed to Asher," except by adopting the reading of the
LXX. and Samaritan, ews, Ty for 7, so as to make the statement
of an actual extent of the district of Zebulun to the Sidonian terri-
But
tory to seem more clearly implied in the words of Jacob.
we certainly are not obliged to follow the Versions where they
create difficulties not in the Hebrew, however fair it may be to
use their aid in removing difficulties attending the Hebrew text.
Even, however, adopting the Samaritan and Greek readings,
we may still understand "his side as far as Sidon," to denote
that he should extend his coasting voyages so far. On the
other side there is no pretence for supposing that Zebulun is
assigned any territory belonging to Asher. Joshua xix. makes
Carmel the limit of Asher on the west, and leaves the coast
1 Ant. v. i. 22. Ζαβουλωνίται δὲ τὴν μέχρι Γεννησαρίτιδος, καθήκουσαν δὲ περὶ
Κάρμηλον καὶ θάλασσαν ἔλαχον.
NOTE A.
247
between Carmel and the sea free for whatever disposal of it
may seem otherwise probable.
The remaining tribes call for no special observations here,
being made the subjects of no objection.
NOTE A.
(Page 24, line 32.)
In maintaining that the translators have connected the fourth
and fifth verses of Gen. ii. "in a way inconsistent with the
proper meaning and grammatical construction," and that the
adverb terem must be translated not yet, as standing between
the verb and its nominative case, we have not only the authority
of the Masoretic punctuation, but the strongest grounds in the
passage itself. If the title to the section be limited to the first
clause of v. 4, and the second clause be connected with the
first part of v. 5, as the protasis of a sentence, then there will
be no apodosis. For the conjunction plainly shows that a
new sentence begins with it. If, however, the title be made to
include the second clause of v. 4, then this plainly appears to be
only a poetical repetition of the substance of the first, contain-
ing its principal ideas in an inverted order,-heavens, earth,
created,-made, earth, heavens. The natural termination would
then be at the close of v. 4, and only an impossibility of other-
wise disposing of the commencement of v. 5, would justify the
continuation of the title in this latter verse. Moreover the
sentence beginning with ", for, plainly supposes an assertive
proposition before it, and not a mere title assuming a fact. In
any case also the interposition of the heavens at the end of v. 4,
between the earth and the plants of the field, would be a very
harsh and unnatural arrangement.
248
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
I
NOTE B.
(Page 66, note).
THE explanation given in this note of the manner in which
the order of the planetary names of the days of the week ori-
ginated, namely, by the resolution of the planets into two series,
reckoning outwards from the sun and the moon, and an
alternate enumeration beginning with the sun, might have
been justified by the authority of Selden and Bede. The former
thus writes:-Quod verò ad Planetaria denominationis ordinis
Rationem spectat; sanè mihi nondum persuasum est aut à
proportione musicâ, aut ab Horarum præfecturis, nedum à
triangulis laterumve aut basium ratione seu oppositionibus,
hujusmodi ordinem manâsse; sed à simpliciori multò origine,
eâque quidem alternationi illi, de quâ loquitur Beda, proxi-
mante.-De Jure Naturali et Gentium juxta Disciplinam Ebræ-
orum, L. iii. c. 21, p. 433. Bede's explanation, as quoted by
Selden, p. 430, is as follows:-Hæc erat stultitia gentilium,
falsâ ratiocinatione subnixa, qui quasi jure primam diem Soli,
quia maximum est Luminare; secundam Lunæ, quia secundum
Luminare est, se consecrare putabant, (et) de inordinatâ alter-
natione tertiæ diei primam à Sole Stellam, quartæ primam à
Lunâ, quintæ secundam à Sole, sexta secundam à Lunâ,
septimæ tertiam à Sole præponebant. Selden himself only
differs from this in supposing, that setting out with the sun
and going back to the moon, as the two greater luminaries,
for the two first days, they perceived an interval of two planets
passed over, and that taking this interval as their guide, going
on from the sun outwards, they after each step went back over
two planets for the succeeding days (p. 435).
NOTE C.
(Page 126, line 15).
On the question of the possibility of miracles being performed
by created beings of superhuman powers, Hugh Farmer's "Dis-
249
NOTE C.
sertation.on Miracles, designed to show that they are Argu-
ments of a Divine Interposition," may be consulted with advan-
tage. He says, ch. ii. sect. 3, "The order of the world seems
to make it necessary that all created agents should be effectually
restrained or disabled from disturbing that order, in the manner
they might do, did they possess the power of miracles. And
there must be a divine law or constitution, preventing the
interposition of superior beings in this manner upon our globe
in particular. Unable as we might have been to determine by
speculative reasonings, or arguments à priori, what constitution
of the universe it became God to establish; yet we may discern
the wisdom, the fitness, and in some degree the necessity,
of that constitution which we see he has actually established,
and consequently the impossibility of its being subjected to the
arbitrary will of any of his creatures, from whose dominion and
control we find it in fact to be exempted. The laws which the
wisdom of God ordained for the general good, his omnipotence
carries into certain exccution, without the least danger of being
checked or controlled by any opposing power. Hence arises the
impossibility of miracles being ever performed without the order
of God. Not that the works themselves, abstractedly considered,
require the exertion of an infinite power; but the course of
nature being a divine settlement, it cannot, in any instance
whatever, be overturned by any finite power, without God's
express appointment. This is affirming nothing more than that
there is no being in the universe capable of opposing the Deity
with success." To the allegation, "that superior intelligences,
evil as well as good, do not want the natural power of working
miracles, but only the liberty of exerting it. And notwith-
standing they may be restrained from using it frequently or
commonly; yet that it can never be proved (as a great writer,'
Dr. Clarke, “expresses it) that they are under such restraints,
universally, perpetually, and without exception," Farmer re-
plies:-"I would observe in answer to this objection, First,
that were the Deity to lay superior beings under such a general
250
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
restraint as is here supposed, the removal of that restraint,
and the setting them at liberty on any particular occasion, on
purpose that they might work particular miracles, and with no
other view, would be giving them more than a bare permission
(as some represent it); it would be giving them both a power
and a commission to perform those particular miracles on that
special occasion. The miraculous works in this case could not
be considered in the same light as the ordinary actions of free
agents to whom God indulges the use of their natural powers;
but would argue a special licence, and even the express appoint-
ment of the Deity. Now, we are not contending, that God
may not commission and empower whom he pleases to work
miracles; this being, in effect, the same thing as performing
them himself. And he can never give his sanction to imposture.
So that the objection we are considering, were it well grounded,
can never serve the main cause of those by whom it is urged,
or enable them to show that miracles may accompany a false
doctrine. Secondly, there is, however, no manner of founda-
tion for the objection. For our judgments are to be guided by
facts, not by arbitrary hypotheses; and, therefore, unless it can
be shown that there is full and sufficient evidence of the truth
of miracles, which cannot be fitly ascribed to God; there is just
the same reason to believe, that superior created intelligences
are universally and perpetually restrained from working miracles,
as that they are generally so. Ch. ii. sect. 2.
Professor Mansel, in Aids to Faith, p. 33, referring to
Farmer, says, "The objections which may justly be urged
against Farmer's argument, when carried to the extent of deny-
ing the credibility of demoniacal miracles of any kind, do not
apply to it when limited to such miracles as are wrought in
evidence of a religion, and to the question, not of their theo-
retical possibility, but of their actual occurrence. It may be
unsafe to reason à priori, from our conception of the divine
attributes, that the permission of such agency is inconceivable;
but we may fairly refuse to attach any practical importance to
ور
NOTE C.
251
the supposition, until some evidence is brought forward to show
that it has actually been realised. It remains yet to be shown
that in all human experience any instance can be produced of
a real miracle wrought by evil spirits for purposes of de-
ception." When Mansel says it may be unsafe to reason from
our conception of the Divine attributes, that the permission of
such agency is inconceivable, he appears to have overlooked
the fact that our conception of God's attributes is the only
guide, and the necessary limit, to what is conceivable respect-
ing him, unless we use the word conceivable to signify what
is imaginable. As a possible thing, we cannot conceive God
acting otherwise than in accordance with the conception we
are obliged to form of his attributes and character. But, not
to insist on this, neither Farmer nor Mansel have remarked,
that on the supposition that Satan either possessed a real
serpent, or assumed the form of a serpent, on the occasion of
the first temptation and the Fall, and in this form articulated
with human speech, there would have been a very striking and
decided instance of a miracle wrought by the evil being for
man's deception. It is remarkable that though Farmer in the
Dissertation referred to, discusses generally the alleged Scriptural
instances of miracles wrought by other beings than God, he
takes no notice of this. It is plain, however, from the way in
which he represents our Lord's temptation to have taken place,
that he would not have hesitated to explain the serpent as sym-
bolical, and to treat the temptation of Eve as effected in the
manner of our ordinary temptations.
[In connexion with this subject I have quoted in p. 129 a
passage from Bp. Sherlock's second Discourse on "The use and
intent of Prophecy," in which he assigns reasons for thinking
that a real serpent was not employed by Satan in the temptation
of our first parents, and that the serpent is only mentioned as
an emblem of the deceiver. He afterwards, however, added an
Appendix to his third Dissertation contained in the same work,
in which he gave his adherence to the supposition that a real
252
NOTE C.
serpent was concerned in the transaction. He alleged that
this had been drawn up some years before to meet the ob-
jections of a writer that had died after it was written. It was
supposed, however, that he had in view some contemptuous
remark of Middleton on the literal interpretation of the history
of the Fall, and that Middleton's freedom of thinking and
speaking on sacred subjects had led him to change his mind
on this point. Whether this were the case or not, or whether
or not Middleton supposed it to have been the case, Middleton
shortly after published a violent attack on the Bishop in "An
Examination of the Bishop of London's Discourses on the use
and intent of Prophecy," to which he added an Appendix on
the historical interpretation of the history of the Fall, with
special reference to what the Bishop had said on the subject
of the serpent. In the style of contempt with the use of
which he was so familiar, he pointed out the objections to this
interpretation in a way that will well repay the reader.
The occasional occurrence of serpent-worship in the heathen
world would have been a good reason for representing the
serpent as the agent of man's downfall and the recipient of a
curse from God, in addition to other reasons already mentioned,
but not for the employment of a serpent by Satan, as Sherlock
supposes in the above-mentioned Appendix was done.]
DISSERTATION II.
1.
1:
1
:
į
7
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
II-ON THE USE OF THE NAMES OF GOD IN THE
BOOK OF GENESIS, AND ON THE UNITY OF
ITS AUTHORSHIP.
GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS.
I. THE ORIGINAL HEBREW TEXT.
GREAT stress has been laid by modern critics on the diversity
of usage in regard to the names by which the Divine Being
is designated in the book of Genesis, and various speculations
in respect to the authorship of the book have been founded on
that diversity, or have at least originated in it. On the one
hand stands the traditionary character of the book, as sub-
stantially, and in its integrity, the work of Moses. On the
other hand are the several hypotheses, either of an earlier docu-
ment containing an outline of the history, in which the author
uniformly and exclusively employs the name Elohim or its
shorter collateral form El, which usage he carries a certain way
into the book of Exodus also, while a later writer has inter-
polated this sketch with passages of greater or less extent in
which the name Jehovah is also freely used; or else of a com-
pilation of several independent documents by an editor who is
supposed to have "exercised a moderate control over his
materials," as Dr. Davidson says, and occasionally added some-
thing himself. It is only a careful and exact survey of the
entire book, and an attentive examination of the facts that can
256
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
lead us to any safe conclusion in regard to these speculations.
But before we enter on this detailed examination of the entire
book, there are some preliminary considerations of a general
nature which must be taken into account, as having an im-
portant bearing on the enquiry.
A question that offers itself to our consideration at the outset,
as one that most materially affects the entire discussion, has
reference to the state of the Hebrew text, and that, more par-
ticularly, in regard to the names of God. Have we the original
text, or is the present Hebrew text, as regards this book of
Genesis and other earlier parts of the Old Testament, the result
of revision by an editor who may have substituted more recent
names and phrases for those of an earlier date, or in any way so
far modified the original readings as to throw doubt on any con-
clusions founded on the verbal text as it now exists? That such
an alteration has been made in one important instance, and that
in what is considered the part of the supposed Elohistic docu-
ment of most moment to the whole enquiry,-namely by the
substitution of Jehovah for Elohim in the first verse of the
seventeenth chapter, is essential to the theory of its existence.
prior to the Jehovistic portions. What has thus for the sake
of theory been assumed to have taken place, at any rate in one
instance, may have happened in other cases as well, where the
text is now favourable to the views of the theorists, but may not
have been so in its original form.
And here we have first to notice the fact that the Alexandrian
translators in their version have by no means followed the
present Hebrew text as regards the names of God. In between
fifty and sixty places in this book of Genesis they vary from it,
either substituting one name for the other, in their Greek
representatives, kúpios and ó feòs, or else combining the two
where one or other exists separately in the present Hebrew, the
presumption in this latter case being either that their Hebrew
copies contained the same combination, or else varied in the use
of the single names, the combination being intended by the
C
THE ORIGINAL HEBREW TEXT.
257
translators to indicate this uncertainty. At any rate it will be
seen that in eight instances they have introduced Jehovah
either in place of Elohim, or in combination with it, all these
except one being in the supposed Elohim document, in which,
according to the theory, Jehovah could have no place whatever;
and five of these variations are in the Elohistic part of the
history of the deluge, from the partition of which, more than
from any other source perhaps, except the seventeenth chapter,
from which even in its existing Hebrew state Jehovah has to be
forcibly expunged, the peculiarities of diction supposed to dis-
tinguish the Elohist and the Jehovist have been derived. In
whatever way this difference between the Greek and Hebrew
has happened, it equally serves the purpose of the present
argument. If it has arisen from an actual difference in the
ancient Hebrew copies, it shows how uncertain must be all con-
clusions drawn from the existing state of the Hebrew text, as
regards these names of God, not only throwing doubt on the
readings in which it actually differs from the Greek, but
rendering all less certain than is needful to sustain so important
a theory as that in question. But even supposing that the
LXX. departed from a text agreeing with that now extant, in
a capricious or careless neglect of the distinctions existing in it,
and used either name indifferently as it occurred to them, then
should the present Hebrew be only a modernised version or
revision of the original now wholly lost, in this case the actual
inexactness of one set of translators, would unquestionably
render more probable the already not improbable inexactness
of another set, in a matter which they were not likely to think
very important, as the LXX. plainly did not think it to be by
the hypothesis, or such as to preclude the exercise of their own
discretion.
On the possibility of the present Pentateuch being such a
translation or revised edition in a more modern form, as has
just been suggested, Professor Rawlinson, Essay in Aids to
Faith, p. 251, remarks, that "the Pentateuch may have under-
17
258
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
gone an authoritative revision by Ezra, when the language may
have been to some extent modernised, and a certain number of
parenthetic insertions may have been made into the text.
The Jewish tradition on this head seems to deserve attention
from its harmony with what is said of Ezra in the book which
bears his name.
And this authoritative revision would account
at once for the language not being more archaic than it is, and
for the occasional insertion of parentheses of the nature of a
comment." It would also account for anachronisms of a verbal
nature, on which objectors, such as the Bishop of Natal, so much
rely, for instance, the use of the name Gilgal, of Dan for Laish,
and the occurrence of the word prophet, , instead of seer,
, if it be meant in 1 Sam. ix. 9, that the latter was the
more ancient term, and the former only of recent introduction in
Samuel's time.¹ It would also in some measure account for the
difficulties in regard to numbers which present themselves in
the Pentateuch. An obscurity in regard to numbers would be
the more likely, as in the original they might have been speci-
fied not in words, but by numerical signs. That there actually
was conjectural emendation in regard to one or both of two
different recensions of the fifth chapter of Genesis is quite
evident. While the Hebrew and the Greek for the most part
agree in the total ages of the patriarchs as set out in that
chapter, they generally differ by a century in the ages at which
they are represented as begetting their sons, while in the
lengths of their subsequent lives this difference is compensated
by the addition or subtraction of a century in order to preserve
the same aggregates. The impossibility of determining now in
which case the emendation was made, or whether both are the
result of conjectural alteration, tends to throw great doubt on
the correctness of the numbers in general as specified in the
1
At a later period, such as the time of Isaiah and of the writer of the Chronicles,
Roeh or Seer appears to have come into use again, exemplifying the saying of Horace,
Multa renascentur quæ jam cecidêre. The comparison, however, in I Sam. ix. 9
seems to be only between the usage in the time of the writer of the history, and that
of Saul's time, and not between the latter and that of an earlier period, which may
have been very different.
↓
THE ORIGINAL HEBREW TEXT.
259
existing copies of the Pentateuch, and especially of the larger
numerals, which in proportion to the greater number of signs
which may have been employed, would have been exposed to
greater chances of corruption, or of the loss of the meaning
of some of the signs employed.
The Jewish tradition, to which Professor Rawlinson refers in
the words above quoted, is developed in 2 Esdras xiv. into the
story, that the Pentateuch having been burnt at the time of the
destruction of Jerusalem, Ezra re-wrote it by divine inspiration.'
This extravagant story would have had an historical basis in
such a modernised revision or translation as may be supposed
not devoid of foundation on the following considerations:-2
While the substantial sameness of the present Biblical
Hebrew throughout the entire range of the Old Testament
writings has been deemed so unlikely a characteristic of a
language subsisting through such a lengthened period, as to
occasion in the minds of many scholars the suspicion that the
earlier books are not so ancient as they pretend to be, we have
an express testimony that after the return from Babylon, the
Pentateuchal Hebrew, at any rate, had become so unintelligible
to the bulk of the people, as to need interpretation. We read
in Nehemiah viii. 8, that when Ezra assembled the people that
the law might be read to them, his assistants "read in the
book, in the Law of God distinctly," lit., a separated part
or paragraph,3" and gave the sense, and caused to understand
1 The statement of Irenæus preserved by Eusebius, Eccl. Hist. v. 8, is to the same
effect, except that the phrase, Siaplaρeiσŵv тŵv ypadŵr, is perhaps capable of being
understood of a corruption of the text without implying its absolute destruction.
2 The remark of the Bishop of Natal on this supposition is simply ridiculous :-
"The idea of Ezra undertaking to revise, in a later age, words believed to have been
written down by Moses, and to have Divine authority, etc., modernising language so
venerable and sacred, must surely seem very strange to many an English reader.”—
Pentateuch Critically Examined, Pt. ii. p. 178. Why should it seem strange to people
who are aware that they only know the writings by a translation themselves, and who
know that our Lord and his Apostles quoted them from a translation, which they can
by their Reference Bibles perceive to have differed often very much from those
writings as they have been handed down to the present day; and especially when
they know that Ezra, to whom this performance is attributed, was himself included in
the number of inspired writers? That he altered or corrupted the sense of the original
is not of course to be imagined.
The word
is the participle of Pual, and does not agree with the preceding
260
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
the reading." This manner of interpreting, paragraph by para-
graph, shows that the language of the Law was to some extent
unintelligible to the common people; and the notion has pre-
vailed in consequence that the Biblical Hebrew had ceased to be
vernacular at this time, the use of it being supposed to have been
lost during the Captivity. But if so, it seems strange that a succes-
sion of writers who addressed themselves to the Jewish people at
large¹ during the period after the return from Babylon down to
Malachi, including the authors of the post-captivity Psalms, for
a century and a half from the first commencement of the return,
should have continued to write in that now obsolete dialect.
While it may be inferred from this continued employment of it,
that the Biblical Hebrew was still in use amongst the people,
there are also indications of a different kind from which the
same may be concluded. The language spoken in Babylon and
Assyria at the time of the captivity was the Aramaan, ',
or Syriac. That it was the language of the Assyrians is evident.
from 2 Kings xviii. 26, where Rabshakeh is requested to speak
in the Syrian language and not in that of the Jews. And that
it was the language spoken in Babylon, and identical with the
Biblical Chaldee, is plain from Dan. ii. 4, where it is said that
the Chaldeans, when brought before Nebuchadnezzar, "spake to
the king, , in Syriac." This is mentioned not because
they were likely to have spoken to the king in any other lan-
guage, but because the narrator, having written thus far in He-
brew, was about to introduce their words in the language in which
they spoke, namely the Biblical Chaldee. And having given
in which is feminine, but is used substantively as the accusative after the verb
read. The Talmudists evidently thus understood it: Distinctè lectum per periodos et
commata. See Grotius in loc.
1 It is expressly said in Ezra v. 1, that it was to the Jews, evidently not to the
priests only but to the people at large, that Haggai and Zechariah prophesied pre-
paratory to the resumption of the building of the temple on the accession of Darius.
Hence we find in their books besides parts addressed to the rulers and priests, other
parts expressly directed to the people: Haggai i. 13, "Then spake Haggai in the
Lord's message unto the people;" Zech. vii. 5, "Speak unto all the people of the
land and to the priests." Similarly the first chapter of Malachi is "The burden of
the word of the Lord to Israel," while the second begins, "And now, O ye priests,
this commandment is for you."
2 It is supposed, however, that the Chaldeans, being a non-Shemitic race, did no
THE ORIGINAL HEBREW TEXT.
261
their words in this dialect he continues to use it to the end of
the narrative, apparently for the purpose of giving the words of
the interlocutors in the language in which they were spoken.
The remaining Chaldee portion of this book is a collection
of documents unconnected with one another or with what
precedes, one of them being a writing by Nebuchadnezzar,
and another by Daniel, but introduced by a preface which
mentions him in the third person, and states that he wrote
this account of a dream that he had, and spake what follows.
In the remaining portion of the book, in which Daniel
appears as his own historian and speaks throughout in his
own person, the language is Hebrew. This Aramæan or
Chaldee thus used in the Book of Daniel, and distinguished
from the Hebrew or Jews language, 7, in 2 Kings xviii.
26, and in the corresponding passages of Chronicles and Isaiah,
was also the language spoken by the colonists who had taken the
place of the Jews in Palestine at the time of the captivity. In Ezra
iv. 7 we are told that certain adversaries of the Jews, of course
some of these colonists, wrote to Artaxerxes complaining of the
proceedings of the Jews in rebuilding the temple. This letter,
as addressed to the Persian government, is described by a word
of Persian origin (1) and was no doubt written in the
Persian tongue. But it is added that "the writing of the letter
was written in Syriac, ', and interpreted in Syriac." The
only intelligible meaning of this statement is that the Persian
copy was written in Syriac letters, and that there was also a
draft or copy in Syriac, as the native tongue of the writers.
And this would likewise have been the vernacular of the Jews
if they had lost the use of Hebrew in Babylon. But instead of
that we find in Neh. xiii. 24 the Jews language described by
the same word, '', by which it is distinguished from the
Syriac in 2 Kings xviii. 26, while it is here distinguished from
speak the same language as the general inhabitants of Babylon, at least in their
professional proceedings. And thus is explained by some the necessity of Daniel
and his companions learning the tongue of the Chaldeans, Dan. i. 4. But this might
be explained by the difference between Hebrew and Syriac.
262
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
1
the speech of Ashdod, which may have been some form of Syriac.
And then we read in Esth. viii. 9 of letters written to the Jews,
and to the rulers of the provinces from India to Ethiopia,
"unto every people after their language, and to the Jews ac-
cording to their writing, and according to their language."
From this it may be concluded that the Chaldee was not the
vernacular of the Jews at this time. Had it been, it would not
have been necessary to distinguish the language in which they
were addressed from the languages in which the letters to the
several provinces were written, amongst which, of course,
the Syriac or Chaldee was included. It is clear, therefore,
that the Biblical Hebrew had not as yet gone out of use
amongst the Jews, however the intercourse with the colonists,
and the growing use of the Greek language after the time
of Alexander the Great, may have subsequently occasioned its
disuse in Judæa. The foregoing remarks may be fortified by
the arguments of Carpzov, who, Crit. Sacr. Vet. Test. Pt. I.
c. v. §. 5, in proof that the Jews had not lost the vernacular
use of Hebrew in Babylon, urges,-1. That it would have been
next to a miracle, if the Jews, in the space of seventy years,
living together as a colony, had lost their vernacular speech,
especially as after their return there were some who remembered
the first temple and wept.-2. That Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah,
Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi recited their writings to the
people, and wrote for the use of the people in general.-3. That
after the return, not only the public reading of the Law, and the
public prayers were in the Hebrew language, but also that the
covenant subscribed by the people, Neh. ix., x., was in Hebrew.—
4. That according to Neh. xiii. 24, it seemed strange that the
children of the mixed marriages spoke after the speech of
Ashdod, and of the Moabites and Ammonites, instead of the
vernacular language of the Jews.
If now the Hebrew of the later books of the Old Testament
was in common use amongst the Jews in the time of Ezra, it is
impossible that the language of the Pentateuch in its present
THE ORIGINAL HEBREW TEXT.
263
CC
form could have then needed interpretation, such as is plainly
described in Neh. viii. 8, which seems too precise to denote
anything such as mere comment or explanatory discourse.
They read in the book of the law of God a separated portion,
and gave the sense and caused to understand as they read."
The inference therefore is that it was the original language of
the Pentateuch which at this time had become generally unin-
telligible, and that the form, in which the Pentateuch at present
exists is a translation or modernised version into the later Biblical
Hebrew, the original being now lost. But if this be the case, as
it is impossible now to ascertain on what principle the authors of
such a modernised version proceeded in regard to the names of
God, any conclusion drawn from their usage in this respect, must
needs be highly precarious, especially with the example of the
Alexandrian translators in this matter in view. The singular
consistency indeed which is observable in the first portions of
the book as regards the manner of using these names, confirmed
as that is in regard to the earliest document by the usage of the
LXX., renders it highly probable that, as regards these portions,
a like consistency existed from the commencement. And this
probability is sufficient to justify the reserved and cautious use
that has been made of this peculiarity in the preceding Disserta-
tion, as helping, in connexion with a distinctness and completeness
of subject matter, to mark off those documents as separate from the
rest, and to be treated as subject to any such principle and mode
of interpretation as they may seem to require, on considerations
proper to themselves, without involving the necessity of adopt-
ing a like manner of interpretation in reference to the remaining
parts of the book to which they are prefixed. As regards the
book in general, however, enough has been said to show how
very precarious must be any conclusions, for the certainty of
which it is necessary to suppose that the names of God as they
exist in the present Hebrew copies are exactly as they came
from the hand of the original writer or writers, to whom the
several parts of this book are ascribed.
264
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
II.—THE NAMES OF GOD, GENERIC AND PROPER.
THE uncertainty respecting the original use of the names of
God which has been just insisted on, though sufficient to render
the conclusions of modern critics very precarious, especially
as it will be seen particularly to affect some of the passages
of most importance in this discussion, may yet leave a large
proportion of instances of their use unaffected. And perhaps it
may be found that, whether we regard the present text as
substantially conformable with the original, or due to edi-
torial revision, a tolerably satisfactory account may in most
instances be given of the use of each name as it occurs, on
the ordinary principles which influence writers in the em-
ployment of contemporaneous terms. Supposing that the two
names, Jehovah and Elohim, were co-existing names of the
same nature and equivalent in their meaning, it would be
nothing remarkable for the same writer, if only for the sake
of variety, to use both indiscriminately and indifferently. Indeed
it is not denied that one of the supposed writers of the book
of Genesis, the so-called Jehovist, used both names freely.
At the same time it would not be unlikely that a writer,
having from whatever cause set out with one or other of these
names, should in any short piece complete in itself, such as a
psalm or brief narrative of some particular events or circum-
stances, occasionally adhere to the use of the same name
throughout. Even on this supposition, therefore, the existing
variation in the use of these names would have no great weight,
unless it should appear that they were not in contemporaneous
use at the time in which any of the documents in question are com-
monly supposed to have been written. But in fact these words are
not both proper names, nor of co-ordinate value, however on par-
ticular occasions they might be interchanged without injury to
the meaning of the writer; just as one might at times ascribe an
action indifferently to the Emperor, or the Emperor Augustus,
GENERIC AND PROPER NAMES OF GOD.
265
or simply Augustus, and yet at other times it would be proper
to use one rather than another. While Jehovah is strictly and
essentially a proper name, Elohim is not a proper name at all,
but is the generic name of deity, and may be applied equally
to false gods or to the one living and true God. This is clearly
implied in, and is the ground of, the common expression, "the
Lord our God," Jehovah our Elohim, which is an assumptive
proposition, of which the proper name Jehovah is the subject
and the appellative Elohim the predicate.¹ Hence the English
Version of Deut. vi. 4. "The Lord our God is one Lord," is
singularly infelicitous. The words as thus rendered only assert
the singleness of Jehovah, as if any one had ever imagined that
there was more than one Jehovah. Plainly it never could have
been intended to make so unmeaning and needless an assertion.
Manifestly the correct translation is, "Jehovah is our Elohim,
Jehovah is one," or else, "Jehovah our Elohim, Jehovah
is one," that is, one Elohim, having here the sense
of unicus or solus, as in 1 Kings iv. 19, Is. li. 2, and
1 Chron. xxix. 1, and the object being plainly to inculcate the
oneness of God, Jehovah the God of Israel being that one God.
Both the LXX. and the Vulgate are consistent with the true
meaning,—κύριος ὁ θεὸς ἡμῶν κύριος εἷς ἐστι,— Dominus Deus
noster, Dominus unus est. In the former, Kúρtos is not an
appellative used without the article as the predicate; it is the
subject, but has dropped the article, according to the usage of the
LXX. when it represents the proper name Jehovah. The absur-
(
"In that oft-recurring phrase, 'I am YAHVEH, your Elohim,' it is clear that we
could no more transpose the two words, than in the expression, I am Joseph, your
brother,' we could interchange the words 'Joseph,' and brother.' Tahreh' stands
as the personal name of the Being who is speaking; while Elohim' is in the nature
of a common noun (though there is but one, in fact, who can be connoted by it)."-
Crisis Hupfeldiana, by the Rev. W. Kay, D.D., Principal of Bishop's College,
Calcutta, p. 9. This brief work has many good remarks, but the theory of the
difference in the significance of the names added to the observation just quoted, as
the foundation of the variation in the use of them, has the same fault, that will
presently be noticed as affecting Hengstenberg's views. It is too artificial, and is
not directly evolved from the documents themselves. The pious considerations relied
on have a value and truth in them, but do not serve the purposes of the present
discussion.
M
266
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
dity of the English Version is less apparent, as the English word
Lord, though representing Jehovah, is strictly speaking an
appellative. But it becomes manifest by substituting Jehovah.
And hence when the sacrifice of Elijah was consumed, the wor-
shippers of Baal exclaimed, "the Lord, he is the God," Jehovah,
he is the Elohim. And in other cases the same manner of speak-
ing will be observed, only its significance is lost in the English
Version, as in Deut. iv. 35, 39, where it has "The Lord he is God,"
the original being, "Jehovah, he is the Elohim; there is none
else beside him,"-"he is the Elohim in heaven above and upon
the earth beneath." There is no respect in which the English
Version of both Old and New Testaments so entirely fails, as in
its neglect of the article. The familiarity of the translators
with the Latin Bible, and the long established practice of mak-
ing Latin the vehicle of communicating the knowledge of other
ancient languages, have doubtless been in great measure the
cause of this grievous defect.
The co-existence of two such names is quite natural. In a
system of Polytheism, besides the name of God in general,
proper names to distinguish the several gods and goddesses in
particular were absolutely necessary. In a system of Mono-
theism, if, as in the case of the Israelites, its opposition to the
prevalent idolatry was to be strongly marked, a proper name in
addition to the general name of God, was requisite to distinguish
the one true God from the several false gods of the heathen.
And apart from this, such a proper and personal name is needful
for the higher purposes of devotion, and for all closer communion
with God in worship. With us Christians the word Lord used
singularly and definitely, the Lord, as a translation of the
Hebrew Jehovah, the designations of the several persons of the
blessed Trinity, used in a like singular and definite manner, and
above all Jesus, the proper name of the Saviour, by whom God
is especially revealed to the world, amply supply the need of
proper names for the purposes of devotion, in strict conformity
with the religious system to which these words belong. Mahomet,
1
GENERIC AND PROPER NAMES OF GOD.
267
whose object was on the one hand to oppose the polytheistic
tendencies arising from contact with the heathen, and on the
other the Trinitarian notions of the Christians, as in his view
inconsistent with the unity of God, avoiding all other personal
names, converted the generic name into a proper name, as
in the Mahometan formula, La Elah illa Allah, which answers.
to that of Deut. vi. 4, and which declares that there is no God
but Allah. But though the same word thus answers both pur-
poses, that of a generic and of a personal name, it is as truly a
proper name in one case as a general term in the other. Indeed
Allah with the double consonant is properly an abbreviation of
Al Elah, the God, commonly used to express the singleness of
God. In the Patriarchal and Hebrew theology, which involved
the closest personal relations between God and man, a proper
and personal name of God was as essential as the generic, which
was needed to describe the Being to whom the proper name was
assigned. The same word used for both purposes, as in the Ma-
hometan system, would have occasioned constant and inex-
tricable confusion. Many occasions would occur where the
proper and the general name could not be substituted one for
the other; and in many cases, where perhaps either might make
good sense, one in preference to the other would properly and
naturally be chosen, in accordance with the particular devo-
tional feeling of the time, or the particular circumstances in
reference to which the mention of God. is made. Often the
choice is unconsciously made through some instinctive feeling,
some impalpable, but not less real, subjective difference at the
moment of writing or speaking. But besides these causes of
variation in the use of the names of God, the mere disposition to
avoid sameness, and to enliven one's discourse with an agreeable
variety, would lead to a promiscuous and indiscriminate use
of such names. Even pure seeming accident, in the absence
of any adequate determining cause in the writer's consciousness,
-
'This use of the generic name with the article, to denote pre-eminence or
singleness, was frequent with the later Hebrew writers, as will be seen hereafter.
268
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
may occasion such diversified use. "One name might still be
generally preferred perhaps, but this would depend upon habit
rather than upon reason; while the slightest variations of
occasion or feeling might produce the most complete change
of usage, without any sufficient cause or motive being apparent.
Who would be prepared to account for his own employment of
the various divine titles in use amongst ourselves? Who would
attempt to assign a reason why one Christian speaks of God's
Son as Jesus, another as Christ, a third as our Lord, a fourth as
our Saviour, and so on? Who would venture to decide upon
the genuineness, integrity, and date of the Epistles, by reference
to their usage of the divine titles? (See p. 15 note.) Causes
and reasons for all things no doubt there are; but their con-
nection with the phenomena is so slight and uncertain, so liable
to variation from the least disturbing circumstance, that to
deduce the one from the other is a hopeless task. Just so we
might expect that it would be with the Jewish names for God.
So soon as Jehovah and Elohim became fully established on an
equal footing, it was to be expected that their usage would
become subject to variations, for the most part quite incapable
of explanation." Hence Hengstenberg's very elaborate attempt
to apply to the whole Pentateuch, with special reference to each
passage in particular, the highly artificial theory by which the
use of either name on the occasion of its occurrence is sought to
be explained, seems as uncalled for, as it has certainly proved
unsatisfactory. This seems quite as little requisite to account
for the phenomena, as any of the theories involving different
1 The Mosaic Origin of the Pentateuch, by a Layman, p. 79-80. The note
referred to in the passage quoted above is as follows: "In the Epistle to the Romans,
St. Paul uses the name Jesus 5 times, Christ 33 times; in the two to the Corinthians,
Jesus 16 times, Christ 77 times; in Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians,
Jesus 4 times, Christ 87 times; in the Epistles to Timothy, Titus, and Philemon,
Jesus twice, Christ 4 times; in all, Jesus 27 times, Christ 201 times, or nearly
8 times as often. In the two Epistles to the Thessalonians, however (whose genuine-
ness has been defended by such critics as De Wette, Meyer, and Jowett), we find
precisely the reverse usage, Jesus 13 times, Christ 4 times; a conclusive proof no
doubt of diverse authorship." The reasons which influence this excellent author in
not allowing their full weight to the remarks above quoted, as applied to the book of
Genesis, will be considered in due course.
GENERIC AND PROPER NAMES OF GOD.
269
authorship and the fragmentary or interpolated condition of
the writings.¹
The generic name in its simplest form El,, is expressive
of the power of God, and in its plural D denotes the "mighty
ones." So does the larger form Elohim when used as a plural;
but used as it most frequently occurs, as a singular noun with
plural form, it rather denotes the concentration of all powers in
the divine Being, the summing up in God of all that is implied
in his omnipotence. It is rather the pluralis excellentiæ, than
the pluralis majestatis. Its generic character is evidenced not
only from the frequent use of it with the article, but also from
its very frequent use in such a connexion as would render
1 It would be difficult to give a clear and concise abstract of Hengstenberg's prolix
and laboured, and it must be added, cloudy discussion of this subject. Having
endeavoured at great length to show that in the Biblical usage, the closest connexion
exists between the name and the nature of the thing signified, so that the one is not
to be considered as a mere name or sign, but as embodying the nature and essence, in
which he is so far correct, as that names are for the most part significant, and that
the word name may be understood often to denote the nature or essence, while at the
same time of necessity, this word, and particular names however significant, must
often be used as bare signs, he gives as the result of this enquiry, Authentie, i.
p. 286-1. That the names Jehovah and Elohim are not identical, but depend on
a twofold aspect of God.-2. That as it is clear that the Pentateuch describes a
revelation of God advancing step by step, until at last He as it were assumes flesh
and blood in the theocracy, so it is to be expected from the close connexion between
the name and the thing signified by it, that the actual difference between the earlier
and later periods would be indicated by a designed and accurate interchange of the
different names of God.-3. That as it is certain that Elohim is the more indefinite
(algemeinere), Jehovah the deeper and more significant name of the Godhead,*
we should also from this point of view already beforehand expect to see them, in the
period preceding the full establishment of the theocracy, interchanged in a manner
far otherwise than afterwards. This, as the period of the gradual selfdisplay of God
to the world, and the gradual advancement of the knowledge of God depending
thereon, has a mixed character. On the one hand the religious condition of the
period scems allied to that of the later heathen world, on the other hand we already
descry in it the same elements which afterwards were concentrated in the theocracy.
But then the mixed character of this pro-theocratic period must occasion the mixed
use of the names Jehovah and Elohim. According as the one side or the other, the
relation to the earlier or the later, the analogy with the heathen world or the
theocracy, predominates, must one name or the other be employed. He admits indeed
that this view is likely to seem too artificial on a superficial consideration of the
subject; but then he says that from his point of view, it is so natural, that one must
set out on the enquiry with the confident expectation of finding it confirmed. Men
who set out on an enquiry with such an expectation generally do find it confirmed, at
least to their own satisfaction. But the lengthened endeavours of the author to
display this confirmation, by a discussion of the several passages throughout the Penta-
teuch in which either name is used, seem only to confirm what he admits would be
the first impression, that his view of the matter is too artificial to be true.
*It is plain from the way in which algemeinere is here opposed to the deeper and more
significant meaning of Jehovah, that the author uses it in the sense of more indefinite and less
significant, rather than in the logical sense of more general.
270
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
any other than a general term improper, as in the First Com-
mandment. On the other hand, Jehovah never appears as a
general term, never has an article or pronominal suffix, and is
never qualified by being connected with any other word in the
genitive case. The only instance that may be adduced as an
exception is the phrase, "the Lord of hosts," Jehovah Sabaoth.
This, however, is not perhaps a real exception. It is probably
an elliptic expression abbreviated from the larger phrase,
"the Lord God of hosts," lit. Jehovah the Elohim of hosts,
Hosea xii. 5. And this will appear the more probable by a
reference to Amos v. 27, where we find, "Jehovah whose
name is the God of hosts." The word Jehovah is used in-
variably and strictly as a proper name, applied to but one
God, and never used of any other being, while Elohim is con-
tinually employed with all the characteristics and in all the
circumstances proper to an appellative or common name.
** Use of Elohim with the Article.
How completely the word Elohim was in its original nature
a true appellative, and continued throughout to retain this
character, may be seen from its use with the article, which in
Hebrew is never prefixed to a true proper name. That the word
is commonly used without the article, where it does not simply
mean a god, but stands for the one God in the mouth of those who
were not idolaters, and in the mouth of heathen men is used to
denote the generalised deity, with a verb in the singular number,
is indeed quite true. Instances of the former usage are too fre-
quent to need any example; as regards the latter may be adduced
Gen. xli. 39, where Pharaoh says to Joseph, "Elohim hath
showed thee all this." Here the word is not used as denoting
Joseph's God in particular, but as a generalised designation
of deity; just as in the previous verse he speaks to his own
servants of Joseph, as one in whom is a spirit of Elohim,-not
the spirit of Elohim as in the English Version, but a spirit
ELOHIM WITH THE ARTICLE.
271
of Elohim, or a divine spirit. In like manner this way of
speaking was used by Moses himself in Exod. xxxv. 31, where
he says that Jehovah had filled Bazaleel with a spirit of Elo-
him, meaning not the personal Spirit of God, but a divine spirit
or influence. This generalised use of the word without the
article was common with the Greeks also, as in such phrases as
éàv Oeòs éléλŋ, though the genius of the Greek language pre-
ferred in such cases to use the article.
Amongst the believers in but one God the word is commonly
thus used, however, not only in such cases as the above, where
merely the idea of divinity in general is intended, but also
where it stands for the personal God. Gesenius, Heb. Gram.
Ed. Rödiger, §. 107, says it "is often so used without the article
because it approaches the nature of a proper name." It would
certainly have this quasi character of a proper name, if the
writer or speaker had not the option of using a true proper
name. But as it is equally so used where the choice of a proper
name existed, it is rather to the frequent application of the term
to a singular being, where no reference or distinction was in-
tended, that its use without the article is to be ascribed. · The
tendency to abbreviate in cases of very frequent occurrence
would naturally lead to the loss of an unnecessary addition to
the word. And so it will be found that it is just in those cases
which are extremely frequent in their recurrence, that the article
is deficient, as when the word is the nominative, or accusative
without, or has a prefix. In most instances indeed of its occur-
rence with prefixes, it may be doubted whether the article was
used or not, because where its presence was only indicated by the
vowels, the word might have been originally pronounced as if it
had the article, though shortened in process of time before the
vowels were introduced into the text. However this may have
been, it is certain that it is only in these very frequent cases
that the word habitually occurs without the article, while it will
be found that in all the less frequent constructions the article is
present or absent, just as it would be in the case of any other
272
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
appellative. Indeed it will be found that in the Pentateuch at
any rate, and it may be added in the earlier historical books, a
sufficient explanation of the existence of the article can be given
in all cases, either on grammatical grounds, or for some special
reason in the particular circumstances of the occasion. In this
respect it will be seen that the earlier books are remarkably
distinguished from such late writings as the Chronicles, and the
books of Jonah, Daniel, and Nehemiah, to which may be added
Ecclesiastes. In these Elohim frequently has the article, not
only in cases where a special reason for its use existed, but also
where in the earlier books it would have been without the
article. This difference is of some moment as bearing on the
supposed late date of the Pentateuch, or of some parts of it, and
as indicating a different habit prevailing when it was written,
from that which prevailed near the time of, and after, the
Captivity.
0
It will be well to make a careful examination of the usage
in this matter, not only as thus throwing light on the date
of the earlier Biblical writings, but also as proving what has
been maintained in regard to the true appellative character
of the word, whether with or without the article. And this is
the more needful as a force unwarranted by the usage has been
ascribed to its presence or absence. Thus, while Gesenius.
ascribes to Elohim without the article the quasi character of a
proper name, he at the same time speaks of it as equivalent to
Jehovah, where the article is prefixed: ", D'OŽNI ỏ Beòs,
the only true God," ubi supra. Fuerst also, Heb. and
Chald. Lexicon, translated by Davidson, s.v.
gibs, says,
an epithet of Jehovah, Deut, iv. 35, 1 Kings xviii. 21, oftener
stands with the article, Gen. v. 22, vi. 9, 11, xvii. 18,
Di
etc.," the irrelevancy of which instances to the purpose for
which they are adduced, will as we go on be made sufficiently
manifest. So likewise Keil, Biblical Commentary on the
Old Test., on Gen. v. 22, vi. 9, and other instances, maintains
that Ha-Elohim denotes the personal God. Thus in regard
"As
ELOHIM WITH THE ARTICLE.
273
האלהים
to Gen. v. 22, he says:-"The article in ' gives
prominence to the personality of Elohim, and shows that the
expression cannot refer to intercourse with the spiritual world."
Yet there is no word in the singular number here agreeing
with Elohim, and if this word is used at times to denote the
heavenly powers in general, as Hengstenberg supposes it is used
in Gen. xxxv. 7, it would in such a case properly take the
article. It will be seen, however, that the article is prefixed
here for a very different cause. But the strangest of all mistakes
in this matter is made by Mr. Ernest de Bunsen in his book of
dreams and fancies, The Hidden Wisdom of Christ, vol. i.
p. 86, 87.¹ In reference to the words in Gen. i., "Let us make
man in our image," he says, "It must be allowed that in this
part of the Elohistic account, as in the rest, God is not repre-
sented as a creator in the fullest sense of the word, inasmuch as
other beings, who are like him, participate in the creation of man.
And this is what we should expect the writer to state, since he
knows no other name for God, than 'Elohim' or 'gods.' The
name Elohim entirely corresponds with the Egyptian idea of
four uncreated gods,-spirit, matter, time, and space,-—which pro-
bably formed a Divine unity, symbolically represented by the
serpent. Of these the first, the aboriginal spirit, was called, as
we have seen, the good God,' and as such must have been
regarded as the God above all other gods. For sometimes
'Elohim' is preceded by the article, and then 'Ha Elohim'
evidently means the God of gods or Lord of lords.-What more
natural for a believer in more than one uncreated god, than to
attribute the principal part in the creation to the good God,'
that is to the God the Spirit? And this is what he does, when
he writes, that although in the beginning the Gods' created
the heaven and earth, yet that 'the Spirit of God moved upon
the face of the waters.' The other Gods co-operated in the
<
C
1 This work makes a great show of learning; but what can be thought of the
author as a guide in the more unbeaten tracks of knowledge, when, in regard to a
well-known matter, he talks of Origen as the successor of Clement as Bishop of
Alexandria? See vol. i., p. 305.
18
274
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
creation of heaven and earth, and so did they in the creation of
man." Now in this passage it is evidently implied that the
article is prefixed to Elohim in the phrase rendered, "the
Spirit of God," or as the author, varying the expression, has it,
"the God, the Spirit." It so happens, however, that Elohim has
no article all through this chapter, neither has the word spirit.
,רוּחַ אֱלֹהִים the spirit of God, but רוּחַ הָאֱלֹהִים For it is not
a spirit of Elohim, a divine spirit, influence, wind, or breath, as
one may decide on explaining the expression.
The latest author who has attributed importance to the use
of the article with El and Elohim, apart from purely gram-
matical considerations, is the Bishop of Natal, who in Part V.
of his work on the Pentateuch, Crit. Anal. p. 234, in reference
to Gen. xlvi. 3, thus speaks: "I am EL,' as in xxxi.
13, comp. xxxv. 1, 3, 7. N.B. As Boehmer notes, p. 270,
'This singular form with the article [which occurs only with
this¹ writer, as in the above instances,] denotes the only true
God;' and so no doubt does the plural form with the article,
v. 22, 24, vi. 9, 11, xvii. 18, xx. 6, 17, xxii. 1, 3, 9, xxvii. 28,
xxxi. 11, xxxv. 7, xli. 25, 28, 32, 32, xlii. 18, xliv. 16, xlv. 8,
xlviii. 15, 15.” The stress laid by the Bishop on this use of
the article, as denoting the true God, and in the case of El cha-
racterising a particular writer, will be found, after the usage
has been examined at large, to be wholly groundless.
The examination of this usage will in some cases be extended
to the entire of the Old Testament, with the exception of such
parts as habitually or very commonly reject the article, such as
the book of Job, the Psalms, and Proverbs. In some cases it will
suffice to examine the usage throughout the Pentateuch, in
which, as indeed in all the earlier books, it will be found
uniform with what is observed in the book of Genesis in
particular.
A. The instances in which Elohim occurs without the article
will be found throughout to be :—
1 Namely, the Jehovist.
•
הָאֵל
ELOHIM WITH THE ARTICLE.
275
1. When it occurs in the nominative case, with no special
reason for prefixing the article.
2. When it is in the accusative case, except with the particle
The cause of this exception will be noticed hereafter.
3. When it occurs with prefixes which suppress the 7, in
which case the vocalisation might have originally been such as
to imply the article, but shortened from frequency of use before
the vowels came to be introduced into the text. The instances
where the pointing is for the article are in Exod. xxii. 19 (20),
"He that sacrificeth," not as in the English Version, "to any
God save unto the Lord only," but exactly, "to the Gods,
except Jehovah by himself," where the article denotes the
entire class, the Gods in general; and Ps. lxxxvi. 8, "There is
none like thee among the Elohim," the class in general, as in
the preceding case. The prefixed preposition, which is seldom
used before the article, is used with Ha-Elohim in 1 Chron. v.
22, and 2 Chron. xxv. 20. The use of Elohim with the article
in the later books, where it would have been rejected in the
earlier, will be noticed hereafter. There are only a few in-
stances of the article after the separate prepositions, which cases
will also be noticed by and by.
4. Cases in which Elohim is the governing noun in stat
constr., the governed noun being a proper name and so rejecting
the article which might else have been transferred to it from
Elohim, or else having a suffix which supplies the place of an
article, or another genitive after it similarly circumstanced.
5. When Elohim is the genitive after an indefinite noun,
and so has properly no article. Thus Gen. i. 2,
7,
a divine spirit, as already noticed. So likewise, Gen. xli. 38,
where Pharaoh says of Joseph, "Can we find as this, a man in
whom is a divine spirit," not "the Spirit of God" as in the
English Version. In Exod. xxxi. 3, xxxv. 31, Bezaleel is said
to have been qualified for his work by a divine spirit similarly
expressed. In Numb. xxiv. 2, a spirit of God, or divine influence,
comes upon Balaam, as in 1 Sam. x. 10 and xi. 6 it comes upon
276
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
Saul, and in 1 Sam. xix. 20, 23, it does upon the messengers of
Saul, and then upon Saul himself, whereby they prophesy.
Exactly similar is the expression denoting the evil influence
that came upon Saul, as described in 1 Sam. xvi. 15, 16, 23, and
xviii. 10, while in the last reference is added the adjective “evil,”
(C
an evil spirit of Elohim," or an evil influence from God,
whereby is described Saul's madness. In xvi. 14 we are told,
that "the Spirit of Jehovah departed from Saul," (where, in
translating, the article may be prefixed to Spirit, as Jehovah is a
proper name), and that "an evil spirit from Jehovah troubled
him;" and this in xix. 9 is called an evil spirit of Jehovah,
or the evil spirit by way of reference, if the article be supplied,
as it may, Jehovah being a proper name. The other instances
of the same form are 2 Chron. xv. 1, where a divine spirit or
influence comes upon Azariah the son of Oded, and Ezek.
xi. 24, where a spirit takes the prophet and brings him in the
vision, in a spirit of Elohim, to the Captivity; that is, in the
same vision that was upon him in the previous verses, while it
was not till he was brought thither that the vision, that is, this
same vision left him. It is worth while to notice the inattention
to exactness in representing the article in the English Version,
which supplies it to spirit of Elohim where it is absent, and omits
it from vision where it exists. Job xxvii. 3 and xxxiii. 4 are
irrelevant, as the poetical character of the writing renders the
presence or absence of the article precarious. Gen. i. 27, v. 1,
and ix. 6, have D, not "in the likeness,” as in our
Version, but indefinitely, "in a likeness of God," some un-
defined resemblance, not the absolute and perfect likeness. Gen.
xx. 11, "There is not fear of God, D, in this place,'
that is, any fear of Elohim, not to say the true religious fear
of the true God. Similarly Nehemiah, v. 15, says he was not
chargeable to the people like other governors, through fear of
Elohim, that is, through a religious fear. 2 Sam. xxiii. 3 is
irrelevant, in consequence of the poetical character of David's
last words in which the expression occurs. So also is Neh.
ELOHIM WITH THE ARTICLE.
277
הים
אֱלֹהִים
CC
а
v. 9, as there is a suffix to Elohim.-Gen. xxxv. 5, "There was
, a terror of Elohim, upon the cities that were
round about them," a divinely caused terror, or else a very
great terror, not as in the English, "the terror of God." Simi-
larly in 2 Chron. xx. 29, "A fear of Elohim, D, was
upon all the kingdoms of the lands when they heard that
Jehovah fought with the enemies of Israel."-Gen. xxi. 17,
xxviii. 12, xxxii. 1 (2), Dubs xp and 'xb, an angel, and
angels of Elohim, not the, as in the English; so Jacob says in
xxxii. 2 (3), “This is a host of God." On the contrary, in Exod.
xiv. 19, it is the angel, referring to xiii. 21.-Gen. xxxiii. 10,
D", not "the face of God," as in the English Version, but
as though I had seen a divine face," a face as of a God.-
Exod. viii. 15 (19), xxxi. 18; Deut. ix. 10, DON YEYN, “ɑ
finger of God," that is a divine finger as opposed to a human
finger. In the former place the magicians may have meant
some God indefinitely. In the two latter it means the true
God, but the appellative use of Elohim in immediate contrast
with Jehovah is worthy of notice. Jehovah delivered the two
tables of stone written with a finger of Elohim.—Exod. xxiii.
13, a name of other Elohim is not to be heard in their mouth.-
Numb. xxii. 22, 7, indefinitely God's anger.-Deut.
v. 23, Dip, indefinitely. In v. 22 the people say, “If we
hear the voice of Jehovah our Elohim any more we shall die,”
where, Jehovah being a proper name, the article may be
supplied. But then they add, "Who of all flesh hath heard a
voice of living Elohim speaking out of the midst of the fire as we
and lived ?" "Living Elohim" is here opposed to dumb idols.
We may compare with this voice of Elohim used indefinitely
the
divine oracles, of Numb. xxiv. 4, 16, and 777
D', a divine message, in Jud. iii. 20, and 1 Sam. ix. 27.—
An instance outside the Pentateuch, worthy of note on its own
account, is in Josh. xxiv. 26. In the English Version we read,
"Joshua wrote these words in the book of the law of God." In
אֱלֹהִים
This passage has been בְּסֵפֶר תּוֹרַת אֱלֹהִים the Hebrew it is
278
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
הָאֱלֹהִים
supposed to refer to the Mosaic code of the Israelites, as if the
precept to which it relates was added by Joshua to this book.
of the law of Moses, as mentioned in viii. 31, and xxiii. 6, and
in 2 Kings xiv. 6, and Nehemiah viii. 1. The title, "the law
of Moses," without the word "book," occurs in Josh. viii. 32,
2 Kings xxiii. 25, and Mal. iv. 4; and the expression, “Book
of the law of Jehovah by Moses," in 2 Chron. xxxiv. 14. But
apart from the absence of any definite article, the expression,
"law of Elohim," instead of "law of Moses," might well make
us doubt that this book or code was here intended, however
probable it might be, or indeed we may say certain, that such a
code existed. It was not until the later times, as of Nehemiah,
that this was called "the law of Elohim," as in Neh. viii. 8, 18,
x. 29, 30. Then in these instances the expression is definite,
De in, the law of Elohim, not as it is in this passage
of Joshua. In fact, this has no reference to the law of Moses
at all, and the LXX. have given the true sense of the words, as
in Grabe's Edition :-εἰς βίβλιον, νόμον τοῦ θεοῦ, “ in a book, a
law of God," or divine law. The Vatican reading indeed is
vóμwv. But the plural is manifestly incorrect, and if “book”
governs the subjoined words as genitives, it is still to be
rendered indefinitely, "in a book of a divine law." The appo-
sition, however, is the most natural way of taking the words.
There seems no reason therefore, as far as this passage is con-
cerned, indeed no reason at all, to suppose that the "book of
the law," so called, as distinguished from any of the other parts
of Scripture, contained anything more than what is found in the
Pentateuch. On the other hand the indefiniteness of this ex-
pression on the occasion under consideration destroys the force
of the Layman's argument, "Mosaic Origin of the Pentateuch,"
p. 303-4, where the able author refers this to the book in which
CC
1
"The law of Jehovah occurs in Exod. xiii. 9, 1 Chron. xxii. 12, 2 Chron. xii.
1, xvii. 9, Ezra vii. 10, Neh. ix. 3, Ps. xix. 7 (8), Amos ii. 4. The expression, "the law
of God," in Ps. xxxvii. 31, Is. i. 10, and Hosea iv. 6, does not mean the law of Moses
specifically. "The book of the law," simply, also occurs several times, but it is always
definite. It is found in Josh. i., as in the closing chapters of Deuteronomy, and
seems to denote the Pentateuch only.
,9
ELOHIM WITH THE ARTICLE.
279
Moses wrote the covenants of God with Israel,-Exod. xxiv.
4, 7, xxxiv. 27, Deut. xxxi. 9, 24-6,-to which he supposes
Joshua made additions from time to time, from whence the
compiler of this history, as well as of the book of Deuteronomy,
derived his material.
אלהִים
This examination of the instances in which Elohim wants the
article, shows that while in the cases of more frequent occur-
rence, as the nominative and simple accusative, the frequency
of use led to the habitual omission of the article, and gave it the
quasi character of a proper name; on other occasions the article
is absent either from grammatical causes, or the proper indefi-
niteness of the word in each particular instance, as in the case of
any common appellative. And this will be the more apparent
when the instances of its use with the article have been sub-
jected to examination.
B. We are now to consider the cases in which Elohim either
itself bears the article, or as a governing noun in stat. constr.
transfers its article to the genitive following it.
2, 4,
1. As we have just seen that Elohim, when genitive after an
indefinite noun, wants the article, so on the other hand, when
governed by a definite word, it takes the article from it in-
variably, as in the case of any other appellative. It will suffice
to examine the instances of this in the Pentateuch :-Gen. vi.
7, "the sons of God," as distinguished from the
daughters of men. The article in the second instance might be
used in reference to the first, but in the first case it denotes the
class, according to a well-known usage.-Gen. vi. 11, Exod.
xviii. 12, 7", "before the face of Elohim," and
Numb. xxiii. 27, with ", "before the eyes." Plainly in both
cases it takes the article only as genitive.-Gen. xxxi. 11, Exod.
xiv. 19, 72, "the angel of Elohim," the article being
in both cases used for reference. In the former Jacob refers to
the command of Jehovah in v. 3, communicated no doubt by an
angel; in the latter the reference is to xiii. 21, and is explained
in the succeeding clause, "The angel of God that went before
לפְנֵי הָאֱלֹהִים
280
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
the camp.”—Exod. iii. 1, iv. 27, xviii. 5, xxiv. 13, □'ibao 77,
the well-known mountain, which if not previously, at any rate
after the events recorded in this history, came to be sc
designated.—Exod. iv. 20, xvii. 9,
2, "the rod of
Elohim," that particular rod, so called in consequence of its use
in working miracles, the reference being to iv. 17, "Thou shalt
take this rod in thine hand," the rod previously turned into a
serpent, v. 2.—Exod. xviii. 16,
p, "the decrees of
Elohim," not some particular decrees, but the divine command-
ments generally, the article denoting the class; or else it refers to
v. 15; the people come to Moses to enquire of God, and he tells
them the decrees of God given in reply.--Exod. xix. 17,
?,
, at the calling of Elohim, or to the meeting with Elohim,
the infinitive used substantively and governing a genitive to which
it transfers its article, which refers to the appointed meeting with
God mentioned in v. 11.-Deut. x. 17, D, not God
of the gods, but the God of Gods.-Deut. xxxiii. 1, ỪN
D, not Moses a man of Ha-Elohim, but Moses the man
of God, specially and pre-eminently, the article plainly belong-
ing to man.
,הַר
2. Akin to the preceding is the use of the article with Elohim
when preceded by governing particles. This usage is plainly to
be reduced to the case of regimen, as may be inferred from the
particles taking the pronominal suffixes. In every case in
which Elohim is preceded by it bears the article, except
where it is rendered definite by a suffix, or followed by some.
genitive depending on it. There are fourteen instances of
Elohim thus bearing the article in the Old Testament, with the
exception of the poetical compositions as already exempted from
this examination. There is no instance where it wants the
article in this connexion, unless Josh. xxiv. 14, 15, and 1 Sam.
ix. 27 be insisted on. In the former we have D, the
Gods which your fathers, served, where the word is plural in sense,
while in the latter, D, there is a word interposed,
and the article which, as will be seen, N commonly gives to
ELOHIM WITH THE ARTICLE.
281
the word following it, in being transferred to the genitive
Elohim, is lost through the indefiniteness of the meaning: "I
will cause thee to hear a divine message.
Similarly there are eighteen instances of Elohim having the
article when governed by the preposition, the exceptions
being only in Deut. xxxi. 18, 20, where as above in Josh. xxiv.
14, 15, Elohim is plural in sense, "other gods." Then we have
an instance of Ha-Elohim preceded by, Exod. xviii. 19;
by ov xx. 21 (18);¹ by T, xxii. 8; and by Dy, Gen. xli. 32,
2 Chron. x. 15, xxiv. 16. On the other hand there are
no instances of any of these particles preceding Elohim without
the article, except in the case of Dy in Gen. xxxii. 28 (29), and
1 Sam. xiv. 45. The very great prevalence of this usage,
would, apart from all reference to particular passages, lead one
to suppose that the article must be due to the governing
particles. And in fact the grammarians regard them as having
been originally nouns governing the genitive in stat. constr.,
and there must have been something definite in their original
use which would occasion the transfer of the article to the word
governed by them. In some of these instances the Elohim
would no doubt of itself have been definite, and the import
of each particular passage will show this. It is the prevalence
of the article in cases where it is plainly indefinite according to
the ordinary usage, that shows how the article is due to the
governing particle.
""
As regards the particle N, and its kindred forms both in
Hebrew and the cognate dialects, it unquestionably originally
denoted being, existence, essence; see Fuerst, Lexicon, s.v.v.,
1 As in Gen. ii. 11, 2017 DUT¬WN.
That the article is due to the preposition here and in the previous verse, where it
is 7, is evident from the fact that immediately after it becomes Elohim without the
article. This shows that Elohim does not mean judges here, but God. They were
to bring the matter before Elobim, and whomsoever Elohim should condemn, he
should pay double. So also in xxi. 6. If the article was before Elohim to denote
the judges it should have been retained in v. 8 (9), when Elohim becomes the nominative
to the verb. Gesenius, Heb. Lex., s.v. Elohim, refers to Deut. xix. 17, to show that
Elohim does not mean judges in these places but God, Elohim being there represented
by Jehovah, and a different word used for judges.
282
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
nix and n'x, and Garnett, Philological Essays, p. 93-4.¹ This
nature of the particle as a substantive accounts not only for its
bearing the pronominal suffixes, but also for its existence before
a nominative case when the verb is passive or neuter. It was pro-
bably used to sustain any relation which might be gathered from
the connexion, and which therefore was not expressed by a pre-
position. Hence it came to be used as a preposition itself; and it
is only in this way that the great variety of significations it has
when so used can be explained. It needs only a cursory look
through the books of the Old Testament, to see that as a general
rule it gives the article to words in themselves indefinite. Thus
we may notice Gen. ii. 7, -, not the man, but a man.
In the same phrase in i. 27, the article might denote the genus
if it occurred thus in the first instance. But the previous ex-
pression of God's purpose, "Let us make man,
" has man
without the generic article, and this is the case with regard
to other creatures also, which are described indefinitely, such as
grass, herb, tree, living soul, creeping thing, etc. The article
therefore to man in the second place of its occurrence is
rather to be attributed to its connexion with the particle
in stat. constr. Hence, in the case of the great whales and
the beasts which are construed with N and the article, these
should also probably be understood indefinitely, not the whales,
the beasts, but whales and beasts.-Gen. vi. 17, 2, not
the deluge, of which no previous mention was made, but “
deluge, waters upon the earth." Waters is in apposition,
otherwise the article would have passed on to it.-Gen. viii.
7, 8, 7)i'o-nx, 1, not the raven and the dove, as some
a
1 In the Semitic languages, this author remarks, "the present of the verb substan-
tive is often denoted by an abstract noun denoting being, combined with the oblique
cases of the different personal pronouns. The Hebrew word is (yesh); but as
there might be some question as to the real nature and import of this word, we prefer
adducing the Syriac form ' (ith)," evidently the counterpart of the Hebrew nis
and, "the plural of which is employed in statu regiminis along with the pro-
nominal suffixes to express the various persons of the verb 'to be,' according to the
following paradigm :—'ɲ', ithai, literally, existentiæ mei sum," etc.-" Ithai is
unequivocally a noun plural, and the pronominal suffixes are not nominatives in ap-
position or concord with the noun, but oblique cases sub regimine."
=
ELOHIM WITH THE ARTICLE.
283
would say, the raven and dove of the well-known story, but á
raven and a dove.—Gen. ix. 23, 7, not the garment,
of which no previous mention had been made, but a garment.
Out of the book of Genesis we may instance 2 Kings xxi. 13,
by, not the dish, but a dish, and a passage that will be
again referred to, Numb. xiii. 33, "We saw, '?',
giants, the sons of Anak greater than the giants." These
instances will suffice as regards other words; and if we compare
with these the cases where Ha-Elohim occurs, we shall see that the
stress laid on the article in these latter cases is unwarrantable.
Thus in Gen. v. 22-4 Enoch is said to have walked with God,
, and in vi. 9 Noah similarly. Keil remarks on this,
that "the article in p gives prominence to the personality
of Elohim, and shows that the expression cannot refer to inter-
course with the spiritual world," as if the remark that Elohim
took Enoch, immediately after these two instances of Ha-Elohim,
did not imply as much personality. It is now apparent that
the article is only due to the prefixed N, and the seeming in-
consistency of saying that Enoch walked with Ha-Elohim, and
was not, because Elohim took him, is thus explained. Similarly
in connexion with the preposition, when we are told, Exod.
xix. 3, that Moses went up to Ha-Elohim and Jehovah called
to him, we are not to suppose that the article gives any sig-
nificance to Elohim as identical with Jehovah; it is merely
owing to the prepositions. We have been the more particular
in discussing these cases, as the conclusion at which we have
arrived will be found of much moment in its general bearing on
the interpretation of the Hebrew Scriptures, and the origin
of this use of the article, now shown to have preceded from the
particles preceding, has not been adduced by other writers as
accounting for what else seems so often to be inexplicable, and
has been frequently relied on as evidence of a significance which
had no existence in the mind of the writer.
אֶת-הַנְפִילִים
3. We now pass to cases in which Elohim being in stat.
constr., and governing genitives of words not proper names, or
284
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
:
In
otherwise definite themselves, transfers to them its article.
all such cases the article belongs to Elohim, and this will be
found properly definite in its use on these occasions. Thus Gen.
xxiv. 3, 7, "The Elohim of heaven and the Elohim of earth;'
Xxxv. 2, "The Elohim of strangeness, or the strange place, that
are among you," where even if Elohim was not definite in its
sense it would have the article from the prefixed ; Exod.
iii. 18, v. 3, vii. 16, ix. 1, 13, "The Elohim of the Hebrews;
Numb. xvi. 22, xxvii. 16, "The Elohim of the spirits of all
flesh;" Deut. vi. 14, xiii. 7 (8), xxix. 17 (18), "The Elohim of
the nations," in the last of which we have also prefixed;
xxxi. 16, "The strange Elohim of the land." In all these
cases, whether the word denotes the true God, or false gods, it
is alike definite in sense, and out of regimen would have had
the article. But in these cases, being in stat. constr., it has
transferred it to the subjoined genitive.
4. It now remains to examine the cases of Elohim where it is
not in any kind of construction, but takes the article for dif-
ferent reasons according to circumstances. These may be
reduced to the following classes :--
a. Where the article denotes the genus or class, as when in
Gen. iii. 1 we read that "the serpent was more subtile than any
beast of the field." This is a common use of the article, and as
regards Elohim it occurs occasionally. Thus we read in Gen.
xliv. 16, "The Elohim hath found out the iniquity of thy
servants;" xlv. 8, "It was not you that sent me before you, but
the Elohim;" Exod. xviii. 11, "Jehovah is greater than all the
Elohim;" xix. 19, "The Elohim answered with a voice;"1
xx. 17 (20), "The Elohim is come to prove you;" xxi. 13, "If a
man lie not in wait, but the Elohim deliver him into his hand;"
Jud. vii. 14, "The Elohim hath delivered Midian into his
hand;" Jud. xiii. 9, "Manoah intreated Jehovah, and Ha-
Elohim heard him;" but this may be a case of simple re-
>"
""
1 But this may be a case of reference to Elohim in v. 17, the article prefixed to
which is due to the stat. constr.
ELOHIM WITH THE ARTICLE.
285
ference, the Elohim just before spoken of, namely, Jehovah,
or the man of God,-a divine manifestation; 1 Sam. x. 7,
"The Elohim is with thee;" 2 Sam. ii. 27, "As the Elohim
liveth;" 2 Chron. ii. 4 (5), “Great is our God above all the
Elohim," not "all gods," as in the English Version without
the article. In all these instances, except two, Elohim is used
as a singular noun, notwithstanding the generic sense, as in the
case of “the serpent" already noticed. This generic use does
not imply a plurality of gods, but it generalises the conception,
making it somewhat of an abstract, just as we would say "the
deity," and the expression is equivalent to our Providence. The
important point to be observed is, that this usage is as far as
possible from denoting the individual or personal God, as some
suppose, but rather the abstract and impersonally conceived.
power of God. Hengstenberg would put Gen. xxxv. 7 in this
class, especially as the verb to which Ha-Elohim is nominative
is plural in that place. But it will be seen that it is rather a
case of reference.
b. In Jud. xvi. 28 the prefixed article is the sign of the
vocative case, while in 2 Kings v. 7, the prefixed aspirate is the
sign of interrogation.
c. Cases of simple reference form an important class. In
Gen. xx. 3 we are told that Elohim came to Abimelech in a
dream, D. This word is here of course indefinite. But it
would be exactly the same if the preposition were prefixed to
the definite ; and accordingly when it is so used again in
v. 6, though the same dream is evidently intended, yet the am-
biguity of the word renders the reference uncertain. The
English translators therefore fell into the mistake of supposing
a different dream, and rendered "in a dream," instead of "in the
dream," in v. 6. This ambiguity, however, is avoided in the
original by prefixing the article to Elohim; the Elohim that
had been speaking to him spake again in the dream.¹
¹ Hence the fine drawn remark of Keil, that "Abimelech recognises the Lord,
Adonai, i.e. God (ver. 4); whereupon the historian represents (Elohim with
the article), the personal and true God, as speaking to him," is all imaginary.
286
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
Gen. xxii. 1, 3, 9 will also be explained by regarding the article
as indicating reference. It is to be remarked that this chapter
stands in the closest connexion with the preceding, which left
Abraham at Beersheba, while on the return of Abraham from
Moriah, he goes again to Beersheba. Then it is to be noticed
that in the last verse but one of that preceding chapter we are
told that Abraham planted a grove, and there called on the
name of Jehovah El-Olam; that is, the name by which he there
invoked Jehovah was El-Olam, as is expressed by the LXX.
by using θεὸς αἰώνιος as an indeclinable: ἐπεκαλέσατο ἐκεῖ τὸ
ὄνομα κυρίου, θεὸς αἰώνιος. Now it was evidently the custom to
localise the worship of God under special titles. Thus in Salem,
Jehovah is El-Elion, at Beer-Lahairoi, he is El-Roi, at Beer-
sheba, El-Olam, at Salem in Shechem, El-Elohe-Israel, where
we should translate, not as in the English, that Jacob called the
altar he there built by this name, but that he there invoked to
or upon the altar, 77, El-Elohe-Israel; and similarly, on
his return to Bethel, in ch. xxxv., he invoked on that place El-
Bethel. Then, besides these localised designations, he is often
El-Shaddai, and at Bethel, in ch. xxviii., Jehovah says to Jacob,
I am the Elohim of Abraham, and the Elohim of Isaac" where
Elohim is definite, but does not give the article to Abraham and
Isaac, as these are proper names. Then, when reference is made
to this in xxxv. 7, "where the Elohim appeared" to Jacob, the
verb is plural, these Elohim of Abraham and of Isaac being
regarded as diverse, not in person, but in respect of local mani-
festation or personal relation. So also when Laban, in ch. xxxi.
adjures Jacob at their parting, though in v. 49, 50 he speaks
1
1 Fuerst, Heb. and Chald. Lexicon, s.v. ', says of mount Bethel, that
"the altar there erected by Jacob, with the name El-Bethel, Gen. xxxv. 7, gave
perhaps to this height with its sanctuary the name D 1 Sam. x. 3."
This cannot possibly have been the case; a compound designation of this kind, having
no appellative sense, would be so strictly a proper name, that it could not have borne
the article which is prefixed to the Elohim. Moreover the Elohim is not in stat.
constr. as in the phrase El-Elohe-Israel, Gen. xxxiii. 20. The only admissible
translation is that of the LXX., and of the English Version, "to God, to Bethel."
The preposition which gives the article to Elohim, extends its significance of
direction to Bethel as well.
אֱלֹהִים בֵּית־אֵל
ELOHIM WITH THE ARTICLE.
287
of Elohim as identical with Jehovah, and as a single witness
between them, yet he afterwards prays that the Elohim of Abra-
ham, the Elohim of Nahor, the Elohim of their father should
judge between them, using a plural verb, while Jacob in pre-
ference swears by the fear of his father Isaac. Now, though
there might have been an uncertainty in Laban's mind as to
the singleness of Elohim, yet his identifying Jehovah with
Elohim in v. 49, 50 would rather indicate that the plural
verb was to be explained by this plurality of manifestation,
and of personal or local relation, as in the previous case, than
by plurality of gods.
Now returning to ch. xxii., we perceive that the article pre-
fixed to Elohim in v. 1 refers to the Elohim of the grove
Abraham had planted in Beersheba, to which he had invoked
Jehovah by the title El-Olam. The Elohim which manifested
himself there tempts Abraham as related in this chapter. And
then, though Abraham himself speaks only of Elohim without
the article, the narrator in v. 3, 9, speaking of the place to which
Abraham had been commanded to go, describes it as the place
“of which the Elohim told him," the same Elohim that tempted
him, and that Abraham had invoked on his grove at Beersheba.
The article is that of simple reference.
>>
Gen. xxvii. 28 is another instance of simple reference. In
v. 27 Isaac says that the smell of Jacob is as the smell
of a field which Jehovah hath blessed. The word field has
no article, and there is no ground therefore for Keil's note,
"the field which Jehovah blessed, that is, the garden of
Paradise.' Neither is there any for the distinction which
he then draws, "God (Ha-Elohim, the personal God, not
Jehovah, the covenant God)." Plainly the reference of Ha-
Elohim in v. 28 is to the Jehovah of v. 27. Having said that
Jacob's smell was like the smell of a field blessed by Jehovah,
he then prays that that Elohim, namely Jehovah, might give to
Jacob "the dew of heaven, and the fat of the fields of the earth,
and plenty of corn and wine," the very blessing of the field
288
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
which was ascribed to Jehovah in the previous verse. The
reference in xxxv. 7 to xxviii. 1, 3 has been just noticed; Jacob
returns to the place where the Elohim had been manifested to
him. We may compare the definite in . 1, where God
bids Jacob return to Bethel and build an altar to the God that
appeared to him when he fled from Esau. The next instance,
or set of instances, will be found in Gen. xli. 25, 28, 32. Heng-
stenberg in this case supposes that the Ha-Elohim in Joseph's
mouth is the substitute for Jehovah, of which name Pharaoh
knew nothing, while Pharaoh only uses Elohim. And in con-
nexion with this he refers to xlii. 18, "I fear God, -8,
not Jehovah, but yet a personal God." But in this latter place
nothing can be inferred from the article, as it is due to the stat.
constr. with the particle as already shown. But, in fact, the
cause of the article in ch. xli. is very different. In v. 16
Joseph says, "It is not in me; God shall give Pharaoh an
answer of peace." Here he does not use the article, as he
should according to Hengstenberg's view, in order to be con-
sistent. But though this expression would to one familiar with
the Hebrew usage sound correct and consistent, to a polytheist
as Pharaoh, it would seem to say, a God shall give an answer
of peace." The writer then considers not how the words would
be understood by his Hebrew readers, or might have been
understood by Joseph himself, but how they would have seemed
to the person to whom they were addressed. To him the ex-
pression was indefinite, a God, and it would have been very
unmeaning to have said again, referring to this, that a God
showeth what he is about to do,-what a God is about
to do, he showeth, it is established by a God, and a God
will shortly bring it to pass. To a person understanding v. 16
to speak of a God, the subsequent verses would require the
article, the God who was there spoken of. Else it might seem
as if the same God was possibly not intended. Common
CC
1
1 The article before Elohim in the first instance in v. 32, is due to the stat. constr.
with Dy, and that Elohim would appear indefinite if the following one was so.
ELOHIM WITH THE ARTICLE.
289
sense will show how incorrect this manner of speaking would
seem.¹
Then there are the cases of anticipative reference, in which
the article is explained by something that follows. This is
sometimes done by a genitive to which the article is transferred
as already noticed, sometimes by a subjoined adjective with the
article, which is equivalent to a relative with the verb substan-
tive, and sometimes by a relative clause. Thus in Gen. xlviii. 15
we have "Jehovah, the Elohim before whom my fathers did walk,
the Elohim which fed me all my life long." Then in Deut.
vii. 10, “The El, the faithful," or who is faithful; x. 17, "The
El, the great," or who is great; 1 Sam. iv. 8, "The Elohim,
that smote the Egyptians;" 1 Sam. vi. 20, "The Elohim,
the holy," or who is holy; Ezra i. 3, "The Elohim which is
in Jerusalem;" Neh. viii. 6, "The Elohim, the great," or
who is great; ix. 7, "Jehovah, the Elohim who didst choose
Abraham."
d. Another class is that in which the article marks pre-
eminence, and is distinctive, or even exclusive. Thus in Deut.
iv. 35, 39, vii. 9; 1 Kings viii. 60, xviii. 39; 2 Chron. xxxiii.
13; Is. xlv. 18, we have "Jehovah, he is the Elohim." And
this expression, DN, seems to have become a formula,
as we find it used with the pronoun thou in 2 Sam. vii. 28,
1 Chron. xvii. 26, Is. xxxvii. 16. Then in Josh. xxii. 34,
1 Kings xviii. 21, 37, 1 Chron. xxii. 1, 19, 2 Chron. xxxii. 16,
Dan. ix. 3, we have "The Lord, the Elohim," the verb sub-
stantive being in some cases understood.
This use of the article in the sense of pre-eminence, and
marking distinction or even exclusiveness, became a manner
of speaking that very remarkably distinguishes some of the
later books from the earlier. We have seen that in all the
1 On the other hand Pharaoh afterwards speaks indefinitely, according to his
notions, not merely in e. 38, speaking of Joseph, in whom he says there was a divine
spirit, a spirit of Elohim," where this expression would perhaps in any case have
wanted the article, but in e. 39 also, saying to Joseph, "Forasmuch as a God hath
showed thee this," not God without the indefinite article as in the English.
(C
2 Or the article in this case might denote the genus; but the other seems the truc
nature of the article here.
19
290
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
instances hitherto examined a good and sufficient account can
be given of the use of the article with Elohim, as if it were any
common appellative, while in the Pentateuch and other earlier
historical books, Elohim, except in the oblique cases, is ordi-
narily without an article, the frequency of its use having given
it this quasi character of a proper name. In the later books,
namely Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Jonah, and Daniel, and in
a very remarkable degree in Ecclesiastes also, the case is quite
opposite. In these books Ha-Elohim, not Elohim, is generally
used as a nominative, and sometimes in other cases where the
article would be absent in the earlier, while in the genitive it is
frequently used in Chronicles without the article. In Chronicles
there are twenty instances, in Ezra one, in Nehemiah three, in
Ecclesiastes eighteen, in Jonah five, and in Daniel two instances
of Ha-Elohim thus used as a nominative where there seems no
particular reason for prefixing the article, and where simply
Elohim would have stood in the earlier books. This usage
seems to have arisen at the later period from an endeavour to
counteract idolatrous tendencies at first, and afterwards a return
to idolatry. With this view God came to be habitually spoken
of as the Elohim, as such distinctively and exclusively. So
remarkable a difference in usage between these later and the
earlier books marks a very decided difference in the age of their
authorship, and is entirely adverse to the supposition of the
supposed earlier books having been originally composed at the
time of Ezra. Even if a considerable modification in dialect, or
otherwise, took place in these earlier books at the later period,
they must still have presented this difference in their earlier
state, in a manner sufficiently marked to have caused it to be
retained in the more modern recension.
The places referred to are 1 Chron. v. 22, xiv. 11, 14, 16, xyii. 2, 21, xxi. 15,
xxv. 5, 5, xxviii. 3; 2 Chron. xiii. 12, 15, xviii. 5, xix. 3, xxiv. 20, xxv. 8, 20, xxvi. 7,
xxix. 36, xxxii. 31; Ezra i. 5; Neh. iv. 9, v. 13, xii. 43; Eccl. iii. 11, 14, 14, 15,
17, 18, v. 1, 5, 17, 18, 19, vi. 2, 2, vii. 14, 29, viii. 15, ix. 7, xi, 9; Jonah i. 6
(perhaps a case of reference to "thy God" immediately preceding), iii. 9, 10, 10, iv. 7;
Dan. i. 9, 17. In some of these books the instances are few, yet they are all for
which the subject matter afforded occasion.
INTRODUCTION OF THE NAME JEHOVAH.
291
The reader who has been at the pains to go through this pro-
tracted and perhaps tedious discussion, will it is hoped excuse it
for the importance of the results. These are, the dispelling of
the supposition that any essential difference existed, at least in
the earlier books, between Elohim with and without the article,
any difference at all, but such as the exigences of each occasion
in respect of sense or grammar would have made in the case of
any common appellative,-the illustration of the use of the
article with particles and prepositions, elucidating many passages
of Scripture, and explaining many seeming causes of perplexity,-
the light thrown generally on the passages referred to,—and the
establishment of an important characteristic difference as regards
the usage in the case of Elohim with or without the article,
between the earlier and later books of the Sacred Canon, the
book of Ecclesiastes being, as far as this evidence goes, a work
of the later period.
III.—THE INTRODUCTION OF THE NAME JEHOVAH.
THE use of the name Jehovah in the book of Genesis must
be considered in connexion with what is said in the book of
Exodus respecting the previous knowledge of that name, or
of its true significance. On the supposition that Exodus vi. 3
indicates the introduction of the name Jehovah, as virtually a
new name not before in general use amongst the Israelites or
their fathers, it has been argued that the parts of the book
of Genesis, in which this name has been employed as if in
previous use, could not have been written by the writer of that
text in the book of Exodus, that therefore only certain parts.
purely Elohistic were written by him, and that he purposely
abstained from the use of the name Jehovah until he came to
the period at which he announced its actual introduction. That
a new name of God should have been introduced at the time
of Samuel, to whom the Bishop of Natal, amongst others, assigns
its introduction, or at any period subsequent to the Exodus, is
292
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
wholly without evidence; and Samuel himself would never have
been fixed on, except for the sake of fathering its introduction on
some notable personage, on the supposition that it was not due
to Moses himself. But if Samuel, or any one at so late a period,
had thus introduced a new name of God, and represented its
introduction to have been made through Moses and recorded in
a writing of the time of Moses, he must have been infatuated to
have imagined that he could persuade an entire people, priests
and laymen, that they had not only the record of this event for
several ages in their sacred books, but also the name itself in
general use in their public and private devotions, if not in their
common conversation. He must either have persuaded himself
that he could create this belief, which is quite incredible, or he
must have acted solely with a view to posterity. Now whatever
motive Samuel in particular might be thought to have had for
introducing a name, which might bring God into a closer and
more personal relation to the people in their apprehension, at
the time when the change in the character of the theocracy
might have been thought likely to weaken the present sense
of God in their minds, he could have had no probable motive
to do this merely for posterity, much less to resort to fraud and
falsehood for the sake of producing such a future effect. On
the other hand, if it be assumed that the true interpretation of
Exod. vi. 3 is that which makes it indicate the introduction
of this as an entirely new name, nothing would have been more
natural than that such a name should have been adopted at the
time of the Exodus. The Israelites were then about to assume
a separate and independent national existence, in which state
they were to stand in a special relation to God as his people,
and he to them as in his own person their king as well as their
God. This might well have occasioned the adoption of a new
name to designate the new relation, while at the same time they
were entering into a state of the strictest seclusion in regard to
religion, and, with a view to the maintenance of that, on a state
of social separation from the surrounding nations. This would
INTRODUCTION OF THE NAME JEHOVAH.
293
render still more likely the introduction of a new name of God,
to supersede in more general use any personal name that had
been previously employed, which their fathers might have had
in common with the other Shemitic nations, and which may
amongst the latter have been employed with reference to the
objects of their idolatrous worship. Such may have been the
name El-Shaddai,¹ which is specially mentioned in contrast with
Jehovah in Exod. vi. 3. Now if this were done by Moses,
nothing would have been more natural than that he should have
endeavoured to promote the use of this name by freely em-
ploying it in the course of his history, at any rate when he
speaks in his own person. Perhaps he might even have
thought it of less moment to observe dramatic propriety by
excluding the name from the mouth of the interlocutors in his
narrative, as he has done with regard to all not of the chosen
race, except where a special reason for the contrary can be
discerned, than to familiarise the people with its use by oc-
casionally, or even frequently, making some of his speakers
employ it. In such a proleptic use it would stand only as the
new substitute for the proper name actually used by those of
earlier days, all danger of mistake being avoided by the know-
ledge of the people themselves, and the writer's own intimation
in Exod. vi. 3 of the recent introduction of the name. Had he
thrown back its pretended introduction to an earlier period, as is
imputed to Samuel, or some other later writer to whom some
attribute the authorship, then, indeed, this would be liable
¹ Shaddai, which afterwards appears by itself as a proper name, is used in Exod.
vi. 3, and in the book of Genesis, as an addition qualifying and rendering specific the
generic El, as in the case of El-Elion and El-Olam. In signification it is similar to
the appellative, Lord, and to the name Baal, which is identified with the
idolatry of the Canaanites and other eastern nations, to the allurements of which the
Israelites were about soon to be exposed. Shaddai is also related to the word "C",
which stands for false gods in Deut. xxxii. 17 and Ps. cvi. 37, being in both places
used in connexion with the sacrifice of their sons and daughters, and which in its
Syriac form denotes demons. It is possible that this name, as one in general use,
may have been felt less suited to the exclusive worship of the Israelites, and it may
have been thought desirable to introduce a name expressive of a different attribute of
God, which might in great measure take the place of the other. The word Seid, or
Lord, is the modern Arabic representative of Shaddai, as in Seid Issa, the Lord
Jesus.
294
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
to the objections already made against the supposition that
it was done by such later writer. But as Moses is repre-
sented as openly announcing the introduction of the name
through himself, the proleptic use, even in the mouth of the
speakers who are represented as using it, is less objectionable than
it otherwise would be; and such a proleptic use must, at any rate,
be admitted in Gen. iv. 1, 26, whoever was the author of that
chapter. For the writer of it, the same who described the
Confusion of Tongues, and who certainly knew the prevalence
of other and equally original dialects of the Shemitic language,
and was aware that the Biblical Hebrew, or a closely allied
dialect, was the language of Canaan, could scarcely have im-
agined the existence of Jehovah totidem literis in the primitive
language of mankind.
1
But whatever difficulty may be thought to attend the sup-
position of this proleptic use of the name Jehovah throughout
the book of Genesis, that, as well as any argument against the
unity of its authorship drawn from the use of this name viewed
in connexion with Exod. vi. 3, depends entirely on the correct-
ness of the interpretation by which that verse is made to indicate
the first introduction of Jehovah as the proper name of God.
But, however the words considered by themselves may seem
to admit of this interpretation, there are certain verbal peculi-
arities in them which throw some doubt on its correctness, and
suggest another view of the meaning much more suitable to the
words of God which follow in immediate connexion with them.
To translate as in the English Version, "by the name of Al-
mighty God," it is necessary to supply in the first clause an
ellipsis of the word name from the second. The more natural
place for the ellipsis would be in the second clause, where its
supply from the first would be a matter of course. Moreover,
there is nothing in the verb of the first clause to render this
The meaning of the latter of these verses has been already discussed, in remark-
ing on the import of the fourth chapter, in the former part of this work. It will not
be necessary to state over again here what was then said.
INTRODUCTION OF THE NAME JEHOVAH.
295
CC
ellipsis by anticipation more natural. The words, "I appeared,"
rather throw the reader off the scent of the word supposed to be
understood, which would be more readily suggested if the com-
mencing words were, as in the second clause, "I was known.”
To appear by a name is a harsh expression, and the more natural
meaning of "I appeared by (or in) El-Shaddai," would be “in
this character," namely, as God Almighty, in the character of a
mighty Lord. Then, in the second clause, where the word
"name" is introduced, and the verb is changed to "I was not
known," it is at least possible that the omission of the pre-
position before the word "name" is designed to avoid the inter-
pretation in question. The construction, "and my name Je-
hovah, I was not known to them," is the regular form for a
very different meaning. A word put absolutely, and followed
by a verb with which it is not grammatically connected, is
properly to be translated as in the sentence, "As for this
Moses, we wot not what is become of him." The meaning
would thus be," as for," or as regards, "my name Jehovah, I,"
not it, was not known to them." And then, as the first clause
suggests, not the name, but the character of El Shaddai, so here
it may be, not by the name, but as regards the character which
the name denotes, that God was not known to the Patriarchs.¹
In what sense it was that God was thus not known in respect
to the import of the name Jehovah, the sequel proceeds to
explain. Let it be remembered that, apart from the
modern vocalisation, which is only adopted from Adonai, which
J
It has been supposed by some, as most recently by Dr. Kay, Crisis Hupfeldiana,
p. 18, that the verb being in the Niphal conjugation, Ay, the primitive
reflexive force of that conjugation would give the meaning that God had not made
himself known to the Patriarchs by the name of Jehovah, and that it was intended
to be understood that God had not fully revealed himself in the character of Jehovah.
But this is not the reflexive meaning of Niphal, but the causative import of Hiphil
and Hophal. The reflexive meaning of Niphal would be, “I was not known to
myself." This meaning, of course, is out of the question, and the more usual though
later passive sense must be adopted, "I was not known.” Ranke, Untersuchungen
ueber den Pent., ii. p. 17, notices the peculiarity of construction as intended to
obviate a misunderstanding. If it had been, "My name, Jehovah, was not known
to them," the sense might have been doubtful. To hinder the mistake of supposing
that it was the name itself, and not its import, that was unknown, the construction
is, "My name, Jehovah, I was not known to them.”
296
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
was substituted for it in later times by the Jews, who had a
superstitious objection to pronounce the Tetragrammaton, is only
the third person future of the verb of existence, the first person
being adopted in the , I am, of Exod. iii.; only that in the
proper name, the form of the verb, instead of 1, is
adopted for the sake of easier pronunciation, the other form
,"yihyeh," being too difficult for a word in very frequent
use. This present-future of the verb substantive denotes con-
tinuousness, and when not limited would signify continuousness
in every respect, and so would imply the unchangeableness
of God's purposes, and the certain fulfilling of his promises. As
long as God's promises were unfulfilled, there was no experience
of the continuousness of his purpose, and the unchangeableness
of his character. The Patriarchs had only the promises un-
fulfilled; in respect to the fulfilment of them, "they received not
the promises." God is now about to fulfil the great promise to
give the land of Canaan to their seed, and so he announces
himself to Moses in the words, "I am Jehovah," and tells him,
that while the Patriarchs had manifestation of God in his
character as El-Shaddai, they had not experience of him as
regards this name, which implied the continuousness and un-
changeableness of his gracious purposes towards them. He had
indeed, he says, established his covenant with them, to give
them the land wherein they were strangers; he has now heard
the groans of their descendants, and remembers his covenant.
He therefore bids Moses tell them emphatically, "I am Je-
hovah," promises to deliver them, to take them to be his people,
while he will be their God, whereby, he says, "Ye shall know that
I am Jehovah" (not as in the English Version, that I Jehovah
am) "your God that bringeth you out from under the burdens of
the Egyptians; and I will bring you into the land concerning
which I did swear to give it, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to
Jacob, and I will give it to you for an heritage. I am Je-
hovah." This emphatic repetition of the phrase," I am Jehovah,"
and the assertion that the Children of Israel should now come
הְיֶה
INTRODUCTION OF THE NAME JEHOVAH.
297
to know this by their deliverance, plainly shows that it was not
only as a mere name, as merely a vocal sound, that they should
now become acquainted with Jehovah, and that it was in respect
to the import of the name and the character implied in it, and
not merely to the name itself, that God was not known to the Pa-
triarchs. Hence when Moses was first commissioned to go to the
Children of Israel, and when he asked what he should tell them
was the name of Him by whom he was sent, attention is drawn
away from the name as a mere name, to be fixed on its import,
by the change in God's reply from the usual form in the third
person,, to the first person, S. The usual form, as
commonly in the case of a familiar name, or one becoming
familiar by frequent use, would be heard without recalling its
import; the change of person forces this on the attention of the
people: "I am,
"I am,”-I
-I that am and ever will be,—“ hath sent me
unto you." And this import of the name thus made known,
and proved by the evidences of God's unchangeableness then
afforded, continued to the close of the sacred records to be con-
stantly urged on the minds of the covenant people: "I, Jehovah,
change not, therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed," Mal.
iii. 6. Not only therefore in the mere verbal construction
of Exod. vi. 3, but in the import of the entire passage, there is
strong ground for concluding that something else than the
simple introduction of a new name was intended. And if this
be the case, all that is built on that interpretation falls to
ground.
At any rate it is quite plain that henceforward this name
Jehovah, whether now for the first time introduced, or revived.
after having fallen into disuse, or only now invested with new and
special significance, was to be the great name of God amongst
the Children of Israel. And if from this point of view we now
look back on the book of Genesis, we cannot fail to see a constant
effort to identify Jehovah with every title and designation by
which God had previously been worshipped, to make it absorb
into itself all other names, and take up every form of worship
298
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
that had before been offered to God under whatsoever designation.
Thus in Gen. ii. 4 the Elohim of creation is Jehovah Elohim
that made heaven and earth; in iv.-ix. Jehovah is the Elohim
of the first parents of mankind and of their descendants to the
time of Noah and the flood. After that the first sacrifice is offered
to Jehovah, and he is Jehovah the Elohim of Shem from whom
the chosen race was to descend. It is Jehovah that calls Abra-
ham, and to whom the Patriarch offers his first localised worship
at the several places of his sojourn on coming into the land
of Canaan, xii. xiii. He is Jehovah El-Elion, the God of Mel-
chizedek, xiv. He is Adonai, or Lord, when addressed by
Abraham, xv. xviii. In xvi. he is the El who hears Hagar's
affliction, by reason of which her son is to be called Ishmael, and
the localised El-roi of the fountain Lahairoi, at which the Angel
of Jehovah appeared to her. Then in xvii. Jehovah announces
himself as El-Shaddai, the name on which so much stress is laid
in Exod. vi. It is Jehovah that Abraham invokes at the
grove he has planted at Beersheba under the name of El-Olam
in xxi. 33. In xxiv. he is the Elohim of heaven, and the Elohim
of the earth. In xxvi. Jehovah appears to Isaac as before to
Abraham, and renews the promise of the land of Canaan. Again,
when Jacob is on his way to Mesopotamia, Jehovah appears to
him at Bethel as the Elohim of his fathers, and Jacob vows that
if God brings him back in safety to his father's house, and Je-
hovah will be his Elohim also, that shall be the house of God,
ch. xxviii. In xxxi. it is Jehovah bids Jacob return, and to
whom he appeals to watch between himself and Laban; while in
xxxii. he prays to him as the God of his fathers who had bid
him return; again, by reference at least, he is the God who
bids him go to Bethel and make there an altar to the God that
appeared to him when he fled, who was Jehovah, and hence in
fulfilment of his vow, it is Jehovah that is the El-Bethel, to
whom he builds the altar at Bethel, because God there appeared
to him, that God having been Jehovah (comp. xxviii. xxxv.)
Lastly, it is Jehovah for whose salvation Jacob has waited, when
INTRODUCTION OF THE NAME JEHOVAH.
299
at the last he takes leave of his sons, xlix. 18, having previously
by reference, if not by name, implied the care of Jehovah for
him and his fathers, as in xlviii. 15, 16. And this identification
of Jehovah with other names and manifestations of God is much
more explicit in the earlier parts of the book than in the later,
as if the author had sufficiently effected the purpose of establish-
ing it, and felt himself afterwards more free to use the names
that offered themselves, with less regard to this particular end.
And if these identifications are mainly confined, according to
the views of the partitionists, to passages of Jehovistic author-
ship, that is only because their assumption, that the writer of
the so-called Elohistic narrative knew nothing of Jehovah, ne-
cessarily, and as a consequence, excludes from the part assigned
to that writer all passages where Jehovah is mentioned. Still
against these critics stands the famous seventeenth chapter,
which has been relied on as one of the main pillars of the
theory,¹ but which cannot be made to serve this purpose but
by the arbitrary assumption of an interpolation or alteration in
v. 1, by which the name Jehovah is said to appear in that place.
But to assume that this is the case in order to make this pas-
sage Elohistic, in spite not only of the existing Hebrew text,
but of the LXX., who so often differ from the Hebrew else-
where, and of the Samaritan Pentateuch, which has Jehovah
also, and then to argue from the characteristics of this passage
thus made exclusively Elohistic, in proof of the Elohistic
origin of other passages, is most unwarrantable. Yet the
critics who thus distrust even the Hebrew text, when it is op-
posed to their theory, rely on its correctness when it is in their
favour, in passages where the readings of the LXX. throw dis-
credit on it, as already noticed in the case of the Elohistic part
of the history of the deluge.
1 As by Kuenen, p. 30.
300
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
* Jehovah not a Phoenician God.
THIS is the place to notice a theory which has found some
advocates, that Jehovah was a name in use amongst the Phœ-
nicians, and designated the deity known also as the Sun God,
Adonis, and Dionysus. After the very complete view of the
objections to this supposition, given in the article Jehovah in
Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, it may seem unnecessary to
enter on the discussion of it here. But the Bishop of Natal
has, notwithstanding, brought it forward again in the last
volume of his work on the Pentateuch, affirming the notion.
with much confidence; and he not only devotes a chapter to the
exhibition of the proofs on which he relies, but also in an
appendix presents an abridged translation of a chapter from
Movers' Phönizier, in which it is maintained that not the
Hebrew Jehovah, but a kindred form, ', written with ♬
instead of, was employed by the Phoenicians to denote the
Sun God, Adonis, and Dionysus, as the source and giver of life.
As usual, the Bishop goes beyond those whom he makes his
authorities. In this case he not only leans to the notion that
it was the Hebrew form, Jehovah, the Phoenicians had, but,
whereas Movers only supposes that the two names existed col-
laterally, the Bishop maintains that the Israelites borrowed the
name from the Phoenicians after their settlement in Palestine.
It seems therefore desirable to review the grounds of this sup-
position, and see how far they bear out the conclusions built
on them with such unhesitating confidence.
If the Patriarchs were acquainted with the name Jehovah,
and had it in use, it is clear that the name must have been one of
ancient Shemitic origin, and was probably brought by Abrahamı
with him from Mesopotamia.¹ And that a name of Hebrew
That the name Jah, used in the Bible only in poetry and the composition of
proper names, was originally an independent name, is not impossible. It has just
now been found in use amongst the tribes of Central Arabia, recently visited by
Lieut.-Col. Pelly and Mr. Palgrave, as the name of the pole-star, though it is doubt-
ful whether it is used as expressive of adoration. Lieut.-Col. Pelly, British Political
301
JEHOVAH NOT A PHOENICIAN GOD.
origin should have been known to the Phoenicians, who spoke a
dialect closely allied, would be by no means unlikely. But the
evidence that they had this name in use as denoting one of their
gods, or that the Israelites borrowed it from them, has abso-
lutely no existence. That which is adduced as evidence is
insufficient even for an antiquarian conjecture, prone as anti-
quaries are to form conjectures on the slightest grounds; much
less is it of weight in regard to a conclusion of so much moment
as that in question. We now proceed to make good this con-
fident assertion.
1. Of all the alleged authorities, none lays claim to any high
antiquity, but that of the apocryphal Sanchuniathon, which is
only known to us by the report of Philo Byblius, whom some
suspect to have been himself the pretended Sanchuniathon, while
the report of Philo is only known to us through Porphyry, and
that of Porphyry through Eusebius. Porphyry's statement is,
that "by far the most correct description of the affairs of the Jews,
and that most consistent with their places and names, is given
by Sanchuniathon, who received his memoirs from Hierombalus
the priest of the god Ieuo. He having dedicated his history to
Abibalus, the king of the Borytians, was admitted by him, and
by those who examined it along with him, to have given a correct
account. Philo Byblius translated the work of Sanchuniathon
into the Greek language." The name Hierombalus is plainly
Resident at the Persian Gulf, thus writes of the Wahabees :-" They respect the
polar-star, which they call Jah, as the one immoveable point which directs all
travellers by sea and land." Edin. Review, for October, 1865, Art. on Mr. W.
G. Palgrave's Travels in Central Arabia, from which the following is extracted :
Whether the name Yah or Yahee (for I have heard now one occur and now the
other), which is by them and by them alone, as it would seem, applied to the polar-
star, has any connexion with credence or worship, I am unable to say.”—Vol. ii.
p. 262. Fuerst, Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon, infers from Isaiah xxvi. 4, and Ps.
İxviii. 5, “that a more mysterious, perhaps a holier name (2) existed from primi-
tive times besides the short name of God, under whose form may have been
conceived of as invested with higher attributes." However, in the absence of any
other evidence, one may doubt the existence of such a name, and be content to regard
the as a preposition, at any rate the apposition of Jah and Jehovah in those places,
and also in Isaiah xii. 2, would seem to indicate the independence of these names, one
of the other.
1 Ιστορεῖ δὲ τὰ περὶ Ἰουδαίων ὅτι ἀληθέστατα καὶ τοῖς τόποις καὶ τοῖς ὀνόμασιν
αὐτῶν συμφωνότατα Σαγχουνιάθων δ Βηρύτιος, εἰληφὼς τὰ ὑπομνήματα παρὰ
302
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
the Hebrew Jerubbaal; and some of the older and less critical
writers, as Bochart, did not hesitate to think that Gideon him-
self was the informant of Sanchuniathon. It is probable, how-
ever, that the name was taken from the book of Judges, as one
imagined to have been connected in some way with Berytus, from
the mention of the adoption of Baal-Berith as a god after Gideon's
death. He would naturally have been described by one imper-
fectly acquainted with Israelitish affairs as a priest of Jehovah,
from his having built an altar to him and invoked upon it Jehovah
Shalom. But whoever this Hierombalus was, or was pretended
to be, there is no assertion that the God 'Ievò was worshipped
by the Berytians, but only that they acknowledged the correct-
ness of the information derived from this priest of 'Ieva in
reference to Jewish matters. Plainly it is as a competent au-
thority respecting Jewish, not Berytian affairs, that this priest
of Jehovah was alleged as the source of Sanchuniathon's inform-
ation. Whether, therefore, this allusion to the name Jehovah.
be genuine, or only a forgery of Philo Byblius,-at best it is
apocryphal,-it gives not the slightest countenance to the notion
that the Phoenicians had that name in use amongst themselves.
Whenever Sanchuniathon may have lived, if he ever lived at
all, Philo was himself a contemporary of Adrian.
2. From the antiquity, pretended or real, of Sanchuniathon,
we arrive after a long interval at the testimony of Diodorus
Siculus. With what relevancy to the present discussion this is
adduced it is hard to see, as he mentions the name 'Iaw in con-
nexion only with Moses and the Jewish people. He merely says,¹
that amongst the Jews it was reported that Moses claimed to
have received the laws, which he enacted, from the God called
Iao. Except as identifying this name with the Jehovah of the
Ιερομβάλου τοῦ ἱερέως θεοῦ τοῦ Ἰενὼ, ὃς ᾿Αβιβάλῳ τῷ βασιλεῖ Βηρυτίων τὴν ἱστορίαν
ἀναθεὶς ὑπ᾽ ἐκείνου καὶ τῶν κατ᾽ αὐτὸν ἐξεταστῶν τῆς ἀληθείας παρεδέχθη.—τὰ δὲ τοῦ
Σαγχουνιάθωνος εἰς Ἑλλάδα γλῶσσαν ἡρμήνευσε Φίλων δ Βύβλιος.—Porphyrius, iv.
Contra Christianos, apud Scaligeri Fragmenta Græc. Vet. Emend. Temp. Addita.
1 Παρὰ μὲν γὰρ τοῖς ᾿Αριμασποῖς Ζαθραύστην ἱστοροῦσιν τὸν ἀγαθὸν δαίμονα
παραποιήσασθαι τοὺς νόμους αὐτῷ δίδοναι·—παρὰ δὲ τοῖς Ἰουδαίοις Μωσῆν τὸν Ἰαῶ
Éπikaλoúμevov eóv. Diod. Sic. Hist. i. 94.
dè
JEHOVAH NOT A PHOENICIAN GOD.
303
Hebrews it does not affect the question at issue. So far as his
words enable us to judge, Diodorus knew nothing of the name
as having been employed by the Phoenicians.
1
3. The pretended oracle of the Clarian Apollo, of unknown
date, but preserved by Macrobius, who wrote about A.D. 400, is
relied on as identifying the god Iao with Dionysus, as well as
with Zeus, Hades, and the Sun. Then as Dionysus was the
Berytian Adonis, and Manasses, according to the report pre-
served by Suidas, set up an image of Jupiter with four faces in
the temple of Jerusalem, in this way it is made to appear that
Iao was a Phoenician deity. The oracle is as follows:
῎Οργια μὲν δεδαῶτας ἐχρῆν νηπευθέα κεύθειν.
Ἐν δ᾽ ἀπάτῃ παύρῃ σύνεσις καὶ νοῦς ἀλαπαδνός.
Φράζεο τὸν πάντων ὕπατον θεὸν ἔμμεν᾽ Ιάω,
Χείματι μὲν τ᾽ Αἴδην, Δία δ' εἴαρος ἀρχομένοιο,
Ηέλιον δὲ θέρευς, μετοπώρου δ᾽ ἀβρὸν Ἰάω.
The Bishop of Natal relies on the elegance of the versification
for the genuineness of this oracle. Apollo seems, however, to
have breathed into it as little poetry as sense. The second line
seems quite unmeaning, at least in its connexion with the
preceding, and certainly the Bishop in making sense of it does
not translate it correctly. His translation of the oracle is as
follows:-"It was right that those knowing should hide the
ineffable orgies. For in a little deceit there is prudence and
an adroit mind. Explain that Iao is the most high God of all,-
in winter Aides, and Zeus in commencing spring, and Helios in
summer, and at the end of autumn tender Iao." Now ȧλaπadvòs,
rendered adroit by the Bishop, does not bear this meaning. It
is rendered by Liddell and Scott, easily exhausted, i.c., powerless,
feeble. It must be construed with both oúveots and voûs, or the
sentence will be self-contradictory, unless we take waúρn as a
nominative agreeing with ouverts. In one case, a little deceit,
in the other deceit in general, is represented as devoid of sense
and prudence, whereas the first verse would seem to recommend
it as needful in order to conceal the ineffable mysteries, if that
1 Saturnalia, i. 18.
304
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
be the meaning of the word vnTevbéa. "The most high God,"
νηπευθέα.
in the third line, is not a title answering to Elion, which was in
use no doubt amongst the Phoenicians as well as the Hebrews.
The genitive Tάνтшv shows that only the highest of all the
gods is meant by this expression. The Bishop feels the
awkwardness of the last line so much that he several times
refers with approval to the emendation of it proposed by Lobeck,
who reads aẞpòv "Adwviv, for åßpòv 'Iáw. This emendation is
grounded of course on the epithet ȧßpóv. But though that
ἀβρόν.
epithet is very proper as applied to the effeminate and youthful
Adonis of the Greeks, it is very absurd as used in regard to the
Phoenician Sun-God. However, the oracle is not worth any
attempt at emendation, being of doubtful genuineness, and of
no weight in proof of the notion in support of which it is
adduced.¹
As regards the genuineness of the oracle, suspicious in itself,
it is doubly suspicious from the source whence Macrobius
derived it. For it cannot be too particularly noted that Ma-
crobius speaks of it as existing amongst the so-called Orphic
verses. These verses he quotes in proof that Bacchus was
identical with the Sun, as well as with Zeus and Hades. The
well-known verse to that effect,-
Εἷς Ζεὺς, εἷς Αδης, εἷς Ηλιος, εἷς Διόνυσος,
is founded, he says, on the authority of the Clarian oracle, in
which another name is also given to the Sun, who in the same
sacred verses, amongst other names, has that of 'Iáo; for Apollo
having been consulted as to which it was of the gods, who was
thus named, answered in the verses above quoted.
Evidently it
1 If a conjectural emendation could make an authority available as evidence in a
discussion of this kind, it would be as admissable on one side as the other. Why then
might not the reading μετοπώρου Ἐβραῖον Ιάω be adopted as well as ἄβρον ῎Αδωνιν
Or we might read 'Aẞpagas 'Iáw, this being the well-known title on the Basilidian
amulets, and thus connect the oracle with Gnostic sources. We may remark that in
Stephens' Greck Thesaurus, Ed. Valpy, s.v. aßpa, sive, äßpa, ancilla, the following is
attributed to Kuhnius, ad J. Poll. iv. 151 :-Ipse Eustathius vocem pro peregrinâ habet.
Fallor, an aby, quod notat Hebræam. Nam Syrorum Hebræorumque puellas
Ethnicis serviisse, nemini paullo humaniori ignotum.
2 It is better to give at full length the words of Macrobius himself:-Physici
JEHOVAH NOT A PHOENICIAN GOD.
305
was amongst the Orphic verses that he found this oracle, which
appears to have been introduced into them in order to justify
the identification of the four names as denoting one supreme
God. Now these Orphic verses have the same character
amongst the learned as the Sibylline verses. A large part
of them were forged, either by Jews like Aristobulus, or by
Christian and Gnostic grammarians, who found a market for
such wares amongst the early apologists. These unsuspect-
ingly received them as genuine, and quoted them in their
controversies with their pagan opponents, who, on the other
hand, readily admitted them also, as showing that a purer
theism underlay the current mythology, and thus enabling
them to reject Christianity as unnecessary. Some of the
pagans may have also composed verses of this kind, with the
view of sustaining paganism, when Christian ideas began to
prevail amongst the people generally. Hence there is nothing
so suspicious as quotations ascribed to pagan authors, but con-
taining Jewish or Christian ideas more or less distinctly ex-
pressed. Orpheus and the Orphic verses became a favourite
authority to which these were referred; and therefore the mere
fact of a saying being ascribed to such a source is enough to
create a doubt of its genuineness. The Cornelius Labeo, who
Aióvvσov, dids voùr, quia solem,
cœlum, quod appellant Jovem.
mundi mentem esse dixerunt. Mundus autem vocatur
Unde Aratus de cœlo dicturus ait:
᾿Εκ διὸς ἀρχώμεθα.
Liber à Romanis appellatur; quod liber et vagus est, ut ait Nævius:
Hâc quâ sol vagus igneas habenas
Immittit propius, jugatque terræ.
Idem versus Orphici evßouλña vocantes boni consilii hunc deum præstitem monstrant-
Nam, si conceptu mentes consilia nascuntur; mundi autem mentem solem esse opi-
nautur auctores, à quo in homines manat intelligendi principium: merito boni consilii
solem antistitem crediderunt. Solem Liberum esse manifestè pronuntiat Orpheus
hoc versu:
Ηλιος δν Διόνυσον ἐπίκλησιν καλέουσιν.
Et is quidem versus absolutior, ille vero ejusdem vatis operosior:
</
ย
Εἷς Ζεὺς, εἷς Αδης, εἷς Ηλιος, εἷς Διόνυσος.
Hujus versus auctoritas fundatur oraculo Apollinis Clarii; in quo aliud quoque
nomen Soli adjicitur, qui in isdem sacris versibus inter cætera vocatur 'Idw. Nam
consultus Apollo Clarius quis deorum habendus sit, qui vocatur 'Iάw, ita effatus est :
῎Οργια μὲν δεδαῶτας κτ.λ. Nothing can be plainer than that Macrobius represents
the Orphic verses as the source from whence this oracle is quoted.
20
306
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
Macrobius tells us had commented on this Clarian oracle, was
doubtless some obscure contemporary of Macrobius, or of that
period. Had he belonged to a much earlier date, it is probable
that having survived so long, he would have been mentioned by
some other writer. Or if he was a man of any eminence in the
time of Macrobius, it is strange that no other trace of his exist-
ence should have come down to us.
But whether a genuine remnant of the times when the Oracles
still spoke, or a forgery of more recent times, this Clarian oracle
gives no real support to the notion of a Phoenician Jehovah. It
does indeed identify the owner of the name Iao with the heathen
deities mentioned in it, and by implication with Dionysus. But
this is only in accordance with a prevalent notion of those times,
that the Hebrew worship of Jehovah was in some of its forms
similar to the orgies of Bacchus, and that Bacchus and Jehovah
were therefore the same deity. This notion is mentioned by
Tacitus, who, however, dissents from it. He says that because the
Jewish priests used a trumpet and drums in their worship, and
wore fillets of ivy, and because a golden vine was found in the
temple, some thought that they worshipped Father Liber,
though, as he thinks, the rites were very different, that of
Bacchus being festive and cheerful, but the Jewish rite absurd
and mean.¹
4. The disposition to identify the orgies of Bacchus with
certain Jewish rites appears also in the passage of Plutarch
alleged in this discussion as favouring the notion in dispute.
In the fourth book of the Symposiac Problems, Prob. 5, the
question is proposed whether it was from a feeling of reverence
or of disgust, that the Jews abstained from swine's flesh? One
person is represented as attributing it to the respect that was
supposed to be paid by some nations to swine, as having taught
the art of ploughing by the habit which that animal has of
1 Quia sacerdotes eorum tibiâ tympanisque concinebant, hederâ vinciebantur,
vitisque aurea templo reperta, Liberum Patrem coli domitorem orientis, quidam arbitrati
sunt, nequaquam congruentibus institutis. Quippe Liber festos lætosque ritus
posuit: Judæcorum mos absurdus sordidusque. Hist. v. 5.
JEHOVAH NOT A PHOENICIAN GOD.
307
rooting in the ground. Another suggests that swine's flesh was
thought to produce leprosy, and that because of this, and the filthy
habits of the animal, the Jews abstained from its use. But then
it is added that, if a reason derived from mythological con-
siderations must be given, the boar was the animal that slew
Adonis, who, according to some, was beloved by Dionysus,
according to others was Dionysus himself. And then it is
alleged that the Hebrews practised rites which strongly re-
sembled the rites of Bacchus, such as the feast of tabernacles at
the time of vintage, the procession with palm branches re-
sembling, thyrsi, and so forth. Also they had persons who
played on harps in their worship, and were called Levites
(λεύιται), either from λύσιος, an epithet of Bacchus expressing
the loosening of the tongue and like effects produced by wine, or
else from evtos. They likewise observed the Sabbath, and some
called the Bacchi Sabbi even so late as that time. In all this
there is not a word of allusion to the Phoenicians, or to the name
Jehovah. But the Phoenicians worshipped Dionysus under the
name of Adonis, and evtos is imagined to have in it some trace
of the root from which Jehovah is formed, and putting
2
1 Εἰ δὲ δεῖ καὶ τὰ μυθικὰ προσλαβεῖν, λέγεται μὲν ὁ ᾿Αδωνις ὑπὸ τοῦ συὺς διαφθαρ-
ῆναι, τὸν δὲ ῎Αδωνιν οὐχ ἕτερον, ἀλλὰ Διόνυσον νομίζουσι· καὶ πολλὰ τῶν τελουμένων
περὶ τὰς ἑορτὰς βεβαιοῖ τὸν λόγον. This resemblance is presently more fully explained
by another of the company ---Πρῶτον μὲν ἔφη τῆς μεγίστης καὶ τελειοτάτης ἑορτῆς
παρ᾽ αὐτοῖς δ καιρός ἐστι καὶ ὁ τόπος Διονύσῳ προσήκων. τὴν γὰρ λεγομένην νηστείαν
ἀκμάζοντι τρυγητῷ τραπέζας τε προστίθενται παντοδαπῆς ὀπώρας, ὑπὸ σκηναῖς,
καὶ καθιᾶσιν ἐκ κλημάτων μάλιστα καὶ κιττοῦ διαπεπληγμέναις, καὶ τὴν προτέραν τῆς
ἑορτῆς σκηνὴν ὀνομάζουσιν. ὀλίγαις δὲ ὕστερον ἡμέραις ἄλλην ἑορτὴν οὐκ ἂν δι᾽
ἀινιγμάτων ἀλλὰ ἄντικρυς Βάκχου καλουμένου τελοῦσιν. ἔστι δὲ καὶ κρατηροφορία
τις ἑορτὴ καὶ θυρσοφορία παρ᾽ αὐτοῖς, ἐν ᾗ θύρσους ἔχοντες εἰς τὸ ἱερὸν εἰσίασιν·
εἰσελθόντες δὲ ὅ, τι δρῶσιν οὐκ ἴσμεν. εἰκὸς δὲ Βακχείαν εἶναι τὰ ποιούμενα· καὶ γὰρ
σάλπιγξι μικραῖς ὥσπερ ᾿Αργεῖοι τοῖς Διονυσίοις, ἀνακαλούμενοι τὸν θεὸν χρῶνται, καὶ
κιθαρίζοντες ἕτεροι προσίασιν οὓς αὐτοὶ Λευίτας προσονομάζουσιν, εἴτε παρὰ τὸν λύσιον,
εἴτε μᾶλλον παρὰ τὸν εἶιον τῆς ἐπικλήσεως γεγενημένης. οἶμαι δὲ καὶ τὴν τῶν σαββάτων
ἑορτὴν μὴ παντάπασιν ἀπροσδιόνυσον εἶναι. Σάββους γὰρ καὶ νῦν ἔτι πολλοὶ τοὺς
Βάκχους καλοῦσι, καὶ ταύτην ἀφιᾶσι τὴν φωνὴν ὅταν ὀργιάζωσι τῷ θεῷ. This cry,
answering to the name Sabbi, was doubtless the title Sabaoth, and the open invocation
of Bacchus without ænigma was taken perhaps from the title Adonai, identified with
Adonis, who was also Dionysus. Or some form of the verb 1777, "to weep,” as in
Ps. cxxvi, which, as one of the Psalms of degrees, was sung at the feast of Taber-
nacles, might have sounded to a Greek like the name of Bacchus.
2 With etos are joined eva, evoî, and other similar words used in the Bacchie worship.
The derivation of these words from 1 or a similar Hebrew root is extremely
uncertain. But even if this origin be admitted, the Sun God having been regarded
as the source of life and existence, nothing is proved as to the use of the name 17777.
308
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
these facts to what Plutarch says, the advocates of this notion
think that they have some support from his remarks. Plutarch
never dreamed of any such thing, even if we could suppose
that evios was a possible etymology for the name Levite, and
that the word Sabbath was akin to the name by which the
Bacchi were sometimes designated.
5. An authority greatly relied on is Johannes Lydus, a
Byzantine writer born A.D. 490, who, speaking of Dionysus,
says that "the Chaldæans call that God Iao, which in the
language of the Phonicians means intelligible light." He adds
that "he is called frequently Sabaoth also, as the God presiding
over the seven poles, namely the Demiurge." This statement.
re-appears with a certain difference in Georgius Cedrenus, a
much later writer, namely of the twelfth century, who says
that "
ý ad is interpreted by the Chaldæans to be intelligible
light in the language of the Phoenicians; and Sabaoth, he that
is over the seven poles, that is, the Demiurge."2 The Chaldæans
here spoken of are plainly not the ancient inhabitants of
Chaldæa, but the astrologers of far later times. Thus Aulus
Gellius, Noct. Att. xiv. 1, speaks of those, qui sese Chaldæos seu
genethliacos appellant. And the expression dos vonтòv, as a name
applied to God, belongs not the ancient Phoenician, but to the
neo-Platonic theology. For so we find it used by the pseudo-
Dionysius, the Areopagite, who says that "the good Being is so
called because he fills every super-celestial intelligence with
intelligible light."3 Then "the language of the Phoenicians "
would in these late times, when the Jews had been dispersed,
and Syro-Phoenicians were the principal inhabitants of Pales-
tine using an Aramaic or Hebraistic dialect, denote in the
7
Οἱ Χαλδαῖοι τὸν θεὸν Ἰαὼ λέγουσιν ἀντὶ τοῦ φῶς νοητὸν τῇ Φοινίκων γλῶσσῃ.
καὶ Σαβαὼθ δὲ πολλαχοῦ λέγεται, οἷον δ᾽ ὑπὲρ τοὺς ἑπτὰ πόλους, τουτέστιν ὁ
Anμroupyos.-J. Lydus, De Mensibus, iv. 38.
* ῞Οτι ἡ ἀὼ παρὰ Χαλδαίοις ἐρμηνεύεται φῶς νοητὸν τῇ Φοινίκων γλῶσσῃ· καὶ Σαβαὼθ
δὲ ὁ ὑπὲρ ἑπτὰ πόλους, τουτέστιν ὁ Δημιουργός θεός.-G. Cedrenus, Ed. Bekkero,
vol. i., p. 296.
3 Φῶς νοητὸν δ᾽ ἀγαθὸς λέγεται, διὰ τὸ πάντα μὲν ὑπερουράνιον νοῦν ἐμπιμπλάναι
VONTOÙ OWτÓS. De Divinis Nominibus, cap. iv., sect. v., Apud Suiceri Thesaur.
Theol. s.v. ows.
1
JEHOVAH NOT A PHOENICIAN GOD.
309
mouth of a Greek, not the language as spoken by the ancient
Phoenicians, but the then current Syriac. Or, at any rate, either
name might have been used indifferently, as in the well-known
words of Lucian in the Pseudo-Mantis, describing Alexander as
φωνάς τινας ἀσήμους φθεγγόμενος, οἷαι γένοιντ᾽ ἄν Εβραίων ἢ Φοι-
víkov. Lydus is not reporting an ancient opinion of the Chaldæans
but something they alleged in or about his own times. And, at any
rate, whether this was alleged as an ancient saying or not, certain
it is that in no Shemitic dialect, ancient or modern, did 'Iad or
ἀὼ φῶς νοητόν.
ad as Cedrenus has it, signify pws vonτóv. These Chaldeans
therefore were imposed on, or themselves practised imposition in
giving this as the meaning of the name; or else there is an error
of transcription in both these statements, as in any case there
must be in one, whether Cedrenus copied from Lydus or both from
some common source. It is plain that nothing is said, at any rate,
of a Phoenician use of the name to designate Dionysus. It was
the Chaldæans themselves who said that Dionysus was indicated
by the name in question, as well as by Sabaoth, in the inter-
pretation of which, as denoting seven, they were as much astray,
as in the case of 'Iaw or ý áà, except that there is some slight
resemblance between Sabaoth in this its Greek form and the
Hebrew word for seven; in its Hebrew form there is none.
These testimonies of Lydus and Cedrenus may therefore be
dismissed, as giving no support to the view which they are
adduced to prove.¹
The taste of the philosophizing heretics, forgers of apocryphal writings, and
others of those days, for manipulating with the Tetragrammaton, already become a
mystical name as early as the time of Philo, may be instanced in the "Aßpaças 'láw of
the Basilidians already noticed. The word ''Aßpatas, which numbers 365, was intended
to express the 365 spheres over which 'Idw presided. Then in the Apocalypse of
Moses, as recently published in Tischendorf's Apocalypses Apocrypha, we find p. 16,
18, Eve addressing God by the name 'Ian. This is plainly a substitute compounded
of the shorter forms, Jah and El, for the Jehovah Elohim of Gen. ii. iii. In the
Sibylline verses also, Prædicatio Noachi, apud Fabricii Cod. Pseud. Vet. Test. vol. i.,
234, the following description of his own name is put into the mouth of God :—
Ἐννέα γράμματ᾽ ἔχω, τετρασύλλαβός εἰμι, νύει με,
Αἱ τρεῖς αἱ πρῶται δύο γράμματ᾽ ἔχουσιν ἑκάστη,
Η λοιπὴ δὲ τὰ λοιπὰ, καὶ εἰσὶν ἄφωνα τὰ πέντε.
Τοῦ πάντος δὲ ἀριθμοῦ ἑκατοντάδες εἰσὶ δὶς ὀκτὼ
Καὶ τρὶς τρεῖς δεκάδες σύν γ᾽ ἑπτά. γνοὺς δὲ, τίς εἰμι,
Οὐκ ἀμύητος ἔσῃ θείης παρ᾽ ἐμοί γε σοφίης.
If it were worth while to offer another guess in addition to those already made to
310
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
1
6. The authority of Tzetzes, ad Lycophr. 831, is also adduced
in support of this notion, being made available, however, only by
a conjectural emendation. Tzetzes in his notes on Lycophron, says
that Adonis was called Taúas by the Cyprians. It is assumed
that the worship of Adonis passed into Cyprus from Phoenicia,
and that this name was originally 'Iaúas, but that the I was con-
verted into П by the copyists. As the authority of Tzetzes is
relied on, it would only have been fair to have given the whole
of what he says on this subject. But first it will be requisite to
give the passage of Lycophron, in which the poet represents
Cassandra as foretelling that Menelaus in search of his wife
should visit various places, amongst which, she says,-
Οψεται δὲ τλήμονος
Μύῤῥας ἐρυμνὸν ἄστυ, τῆς μογοστόκους
Ωδῖνας ἐξέλυσε δενδρώδης κλάδος,
Καὶ τὸν θεᾷ κλαυσθέντα Γαύαντος τάφον
Σχοινῖδι, μοοσόφθαρτον, ᾿Αρέντᾳ, Ξένῃ,
Κραντῆρι λευκῷ τὸν ποτ᾽ ἔκτανε πτελάς.
It is plain that Adonis is here spoken of, and that Lycophron
regards him as the son of Myrrha. Tzetzes, however, after
subjoining certain other comments to the note above given, then
proceeds to say that there was a Cyprian Adonis and a Biblian
Adonis, that the former was the son of Cynaras, and the latter
of Myrrha, but that some, not knowing this, confounded the two,
the poet on whom he is commenting being evidently regarded
by him as sharing in this mistake. Whatever therefore the
authority of Tzetzes may be worth in this discussion, it is
explain this trifling, one would be tempted to suggest D
as the name
intended. This combination has nine letters, of which five are consonants, the N and
being reckoned as vowels. Then looking only at the written letters, and leaving out
of view the unwritten vocalisation, the three first syllables have two letters each, and
the last three, being four syllables in all. Reckoning the as 1000, D numbers
1645. The number yielded by 17 is only 26. If this be doubled we shall have the
specified sum 1697. The fact that this name had a 'ri, or spoken substitute for
the written form, might have been made a pretext for doubling its number, in order
to render the description more ænigmatical.
1 ῾Ο ᾿Αδωνις Γαύας παρὰ Κυπρίοις καλεῖται.
2 Ἐκ τοῦ εἰπεῖν δὲ ὅτι ἐπόψεται τάφον ᾿Αδώνιδος, τὸν τόπον λέγει, ἔνθα κεῖται δ
῎Αδωνις, ἢ τὴν Βίβλον, ἢ τὴν Κύπρον· καὶ ἐν τῇ Βίβλῳ γὰρ ἦν ῎Αδωνις, καὶ ἐν τῇ
Κύπρῳ ἕτερος ῎Αδωνις, ο Κυνάρου. ἅπερ ἀκριβῶς τινες οὐκ εἰδότες ¦ συγχέουσὶ τοὺς
νέους πως, οἱ μὴ γινώσκοντες τὸν Μύῤῥας ῎Αδωνιν Βίβλιον εἶναι, τὸν δὲ δν εἴπομεν
Κύπριον, νῆσον ᾿Αδώνιδος τὴν Κύπρον φάσιν.
JEHOVAH NOT A PHOENICIAN GOD.
311
=
plainly adverse to the notion it is adduced to support, as he
distinguishes the Cyprian Taúas from the Phoenician Adonis.
Let it, however, be admitted that the Phoenician was the original
and only Adonis, about whom the Greeks afterwards gathered
their contradictory stories, and let it be admitted also that the
Cyprians received their notions of Adonis from Phoenicia; still
a testimony that has to be altered by an emendation, which
it does not of itself require or suggest, is really no testimony at
all. If the question was already settled beyond dispute, there
might be a good ground for an ingenious conjectural emenda-
tion; but a matter of question in dispute cannot be allowed to
suggest an emendation, and then to derive proof from what it
has thus altered in its own favour. It is not necessary, how-
ever, to resort to conjectural emendation for a derivation of the
name Γαύας. The Hebrew to shoot forth, to be high,
majestic, glorious, used of God, or its kindred, was probably
the root of this name. Under the latter word, Fuerst, in his
Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon, says, "In Phenician (Gawan)
(elevated) is the proper name of the old deity of the
Byblians; (majesty), hence the proper noun
¿.e., -iun, majesty of Elyon)." He also explains the Gunebel
of Plautus, Pœnulus, v. 2, 67, by ', majesty of Baal. He
gives no authority, however, for the word by itself as a proper
name, nor does it appear as such in the Mon. Phan. of Gesenius.2
7. The name of a Tyrian suffete mentioned by Josephus,
'Aßdaîos, is said to represent the Hebrew or Phoenician y,
answering to Obadiah, and denoting the servant of Jah, proving
that this word Jah was in use amongst the Tyrians, and by
consequence, it is assumed, the fuller form also. But the
analogy of like Hebrew forms, when transferred to Greek, is in
favour of a very different spelling. Thus this very name in the
case of the prophet Obadiah is "Oßdias, as given by the LXX.
,Givalius) בֶּוְעֶלְין
1 Of course, if Tzetzes is to be amended, so must Lycophron also, and that doubly.
For in order to adapt Ιαύας to the metre, we must read κλαυσθέντ᾽ Ἰαύαντος instead
of κλαυσθέντα Γαύαντος.
2 See Note B, p. 633.
312
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
And then we have the well-known forms Esaias, Elias, not
Esaios and Elaios.¹ Bitias as mentioned by Virgil, Æn. i. 738,
Tum Bitiæ dedit increpitans, is adduced as a Punic name, having
the same element Jah in its composition. It is true Bitias
or Bithias was a real Carthaginian name, and occurs in Livy's
history of the Punic wars, but that it contains Jah is a mere
assumption. The name Bithiah, daughter of Jah, given to
Mered's Egyptian wife (1 Chron. iv. 18), is of purely Jewish
origin, and is necessarily feminine. Another of Dido's courtiers
mentioned on the same occasion, the crinitus Iopas, would have
been just as much to the purpose. Why is not this name adduced
as containing evidence of the same element in its composition as
appears in Jochebed, Joash, and many others? But if Dido's
harper has been passed over, not so has been the wind Koλmía.
by means of which Sanchuniathon says that mankind were
formed. If this word is only the Hebrew Sip, "the voice
of the mouth of Jah," as has been supposed, this is evidently
derived from the book of Genesis, and that, too, after the Jeho-
vistic additions had been made to the original Elohistic account
of the Creation, if those who resolve the book of Genesis into
separate documents of different date and authorship are to be
believed. To this and other sayings of the apocryphal San-
chuniathon, we may apply the dry and pithy remark of Jortin
on the Orphic verses:-"Clemens observes that Orpheus bor-
rowed his thoughts and expressions from the Scriptures, and so
far he is certainly right;" so far, at any rate, as the borrowing
from the Scriptures.
T
8. The name "Iаkyos is supposed to be identical with 17,
written with the П, and pronounced yachweh. Indeed it seems
that this harder form has only been thought of with a view to
this possible identification with "Iaxxos.
First, it is to be observed that it is impossible to separate
1 See Note C, p. 633.
2 Euseb. Præp. i. sub tit., Philo Byblius de Theologiâ Sanchuniathonis:—Eîrá ¢no
γεγενῆσθαι ἐκ τοῦ Κολπία ἀνέμου, καὶ γυναικὸς αὐτοῦ Βάαυ, τοῦτο δὲ νύκτα ἑρμηνεύειν,
Αιῶνα και Προτόγονον θνητοὺς ἄνδρας οὕτω καλουμένους.
JEHOVAH NOT A PHOENICIAN GOD.
313
T
"Iakɣos from Báкxos, as derived one from the other. The Greek
language presents other instances of like double form, as Bayòs
and ἀγὸς, βαδὺς and ἡδὺς, βάλλω and ἰάλλω, the two last being
exact counterparts to Βάκχος and "Ιακχος. The question then
that next arises is, which should have the priority? In answer to
this it is to be considered that Bacchus might more readily degene-
rate into Iacchus, passing through the v sound of b, and thence
through the w sound, into a vocal breathing. And this would be
the more likely in a word used repeatedly, as in the celebration
the Bacchic rites, and uttered in loud cries. On the other hand the
assuming of the B from an original vocal beginning would have
been more difficult and unlikely. Then, again, a real word affords
a highly probable origin for Bacchus, while for Iacchus we have
only the hypothetical Phœnician name suggested. The Pho-
nician Bacchus, the same as Adonis, is the Tammuz of the
Bible. The wailing of the Baccha in the celebration of the
orgies is well-known, and is presented to us in the "women
weeping for Tammuz" of Ezek. viii. 14. Hence the verb
, bacha, to weep, would have afforded to the Phoenicians a
word connected with these rites that would in time have passed
into a proper name. And so in Fuerst's Hebrew Lexicon we find,
", Hesych. Baкxóν кλaveμóv, from ." This derivation
for the name is at least more probable than that proposed for
Iacchus, inasmuch as it is a real, and not a mere conjectural
word, which is suggested as the origin.
Baкɣóv·
The fact that Iacchus was regarded as a mystical name has
been relied on in connexion with the secresy attached to the
name Jehovah. But the word mystical has a very different sense
as applied to these two names. Jehovah was a mystical name
in later times, in so far as its pronunciation was avoided, and
was kept secret from the multitude. Iacchus was not a secret
name at all, but well-known from the cries of the Bacchanalians;
1 See Davidson's Translation, p. 251. Hesychius ascribes this to the Phoenicians :-
Βακχὸν, κλαυθμὸν, Φοίνικες.
2 Thus Arrian, Exped. Alex. ii. 16, says, kаl 8 'Iакxos & µVOTIKDS TOÚTY Tçêł
Διονύσῳ οὐχὶ τῷ Θηβαίῳ ἐπᾴδεται.
314
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
it was only mystical as used in the mystical rites of Bacchus,
and perhaps having a mystical significance attached to it.
9. The last particular that calls for notice in reference to this
question, is the use of Baal in the formation of proper names in
the same manner as El and Jah, or interchangeably with them.
This might have arisen in one case from idolatrous tendencies,
in another from familiarity with Phoenician proper names, and
sometimes by the employment of Baal in its common sense
without any reference to its use as applied to the god so called.
Baal was an appellative signifying lord or master, and so when
applied to this deity it always took the article, Hab-Baal, the
Lord. In this way it may have been used in one of the Biblical
names thus formed, Bealiah (1 Chron. xii. 5). As Elijah means
"Jah is God," or "my God," so Bealjah will signify "Jah is
lord," or "my lord." Another instance is Eliada, a son of
David, called Beeliada in 1 Chron. xiv. 7. In this case the LXX.
follow the former reading, as it is in 2 Sam. v. 16. That in this
instance it was not a mere interchange of equivalents, but a sub-
stitution of an unobjectionable for a highly objectionable name,
may be inferred from the change in the case of two sons of Saul,
Eshbaal and Meribbaal, 1 Chron. viii. 33, 34, and ix. 39, 40, who
in Samuel appear as Ishbosheth and Mephibosheth. The like
change occurs also in the case of Jerubbaal, who in 2 Sam. xi.
21 is called Jerubbesheth. The word Bosheth, or Besheth,
signifying shame or confusion, is used in Jer. xi. 13, and else-
where in the prophets, to denote Baal, and the substitution
of this word for Baal in these proper names shows how odious
the latter must have been felt by the right-minded as thus used
in the formation of proper names. There are no other Israelitish
instances, however, but these noticed.
The reader who has duly considered these evidences of the
supposed Phoenician use of Jehovah, will probably feel convinced
of their inadequacy as proof of such use, and will think that
apocryphal writings, and statements of authors who lived late
in the Christian era, or at any rate after its commencement,
JEHOVAH NOT A PHOENICIAN GOD.
315
1
rendered sometimes more convenient by conjectural emendations
and fancied etymologies, are not the kind of proofs on which so
important a conclusion should be rested. And if it did result,
as it does not, from these evidences that the Phoenicians had
this name in use, the very lateness of the authorities would
render it more likely that they had borrowed it from the
Hebrews, than the Hebrews from them; and much more pro-
bable than that this should have been done by the religious
teachers themselves, who were so constant in their resistance to
the idolatrous tendencies of the people. That they should have
adopted a name identified with rites which they held in abomi-
nation, as the highest and most sacred name of the true God-
a name expressive of his nature, as well as distinguishing him
as their national God-is quite inconceivable. Such a supposition
may well be dismissed as being in itself as improbable, as it is
destitute of the slightest basis of evidence, however they might
have retained it, if they had had it all along in use simulta-
neously with its employment by their idolatrous neighbours.
This was the case with Elion, and Adonai, from which the
Greeks derived their Adonis. In such case it would have been
sufficient to have rejected the false God and his worship under
some distinctive name not in use amongst themselves, as Baal,
without abandoning a name deeply rooted in their own popular
There is no proof, however, as we have shown, that Je-
hovah was thus simultaneously used. True, this name, if known
and in use amongst the Patriarchs, could not have been wholly
unknown to the inhabitants of Canaan at an early period. That
the name, however, is not put into the mouth of any of these,
except when a particular reason for its use exists, which will
abundantly appear hereafter, is a sufficient proof that it was
not in familiar use amongst them. Had this or a kindred name
been known by the Israelites to have been in use amongst the
heathen occupants of the country, there could have existed no
motive for carefully excluding it in this book of Genesis and
1 See Note D, p. 634.
use.
316
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
elsewhere from the mouths of any but the chosen race, except
in the cases where it was merely adopted by others with re-
ference to its use amongst them.
IV.-ORGANIC STRUCTURE AND DIVISIONS OF THE BOOK.
WHILE the book of Genesis certainly does not resolve itself
naturally into the parts ascribed to different authors, it is by no
means an unbroken and continuous narrative. Hence in
examining more particularly the usage in respect to the names
of God throughout the entire book, and considering the other
evidences for or against the general unity of its authorship,
regard should be had to the structural organization of the
whole, and the subdivisions into which it is resolvable in ac-
cordance with that structure. To neglect these structural
divisions, and merely to resolve the book into passages longer
or shorter in which particular usages occur, and then to assume
the different authorship of these two sets of passages, merely on
the ground of this difference of usage, is a highly arbitrary and
unwarrantable course. The legitimate mode of proceeding is first
to observe the structural arrangement of the book; and if there
be any well defined arrangement of this kind, it is by no means.
allowable to separate parts of these natural divisions, and to
combine them with parts of others, merely to help any theory
one might form in regard to the particular subject in question.
It will be observed hereafter that this has been done in respect
to the history of the deluge. The verses vi. 5-8, which are
admitted by Davidson and others to belong to a different
section, are yet connected with the succeeding section as an
integral part of the history of the deluge as it now exists, while
by the structural division of the book it forms no part of that
history at all. The effect of thus regarding these verses as part
of the existing history of the deluge is to give a certain coun-
tenance to the notion, that that history has been made up of
two independent narratives of the same events, pieced together
by a subsequent compiler, without much regard to the con-
ORGANIC STRUCTURE AND DIVISIONS.
317
sistency of the entire. More particular notice will be drawn to
this hereafter. If it should appear that there are portions
naturally and evidently complete in themselves, and charac-
terised by a peculiar usage of any kind, then it may fairly be
maintained that these portions have a certain distinct documen-
tary character, not necessarily indicating different authorship,
but, at any rate, a different mental habitude in the writer, at the
time of their composition, from that which existed in the com-
position of parts differently characterised, except so far as there
might be something in the subject matter of the passages them-
selves, to account for the peculiarity observable. But if such
documentary portions are found to be subordinated to a more
general structure, into which they are naturally and consistently
interwoven, and that more general structure is plainly the original
plan of the entire work, then the unity of the whole is highly
probable, in spite of the supposed peculiarity in these several
passages.
That the entire book is characterised by a very marked and
consistent structural arrangement will presently appear, though
several causes have tended to obscure it, and divert attention
from its observation. One of these causes has been the arbitrary
division of later times into chapters, such as they appear in our
present Bibles. Prior to these divisions, the structure had been
obscured by the Jewish subdivision of the Pentateuch into fifty-
four Perashim or sections, in order that the entire might be
read through in one year, provision being made for the inter-
calary as well as the ordinary Sabbaths. These divisions
effectually turned away men's eyes from the real subdivisions.
of the book, the two classes of separate portions being, though
equal in number, rarely conterminous, and never so at both
beginning and ending. These divisions of pretty equable length
having been adopted for the convenience of public reading, any
earlier marks of subdivision would have been apt in course of time
to disappear from the MSS. Another potent cause is the fact
that the book is to a great extent made up of narratives more or
318
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
less complete in themselves, sometimes treating of particulars
separated from those mentioned in the preceding or subsequent
parts by considerable intervals of time, though all having a
certain order of progress and tending to the general advance of
the entire history. The distinctness of these several narratives
has caused them to pass with those who have looked beyond the
mere arbitrary division of chapters or Jewish Perashim, for the
natural and only subdivisions of the book; and this has tended
to help the theory that the book is a compilation of passages
of various authorship and of different ages brought together at
some subsequent period. That the writer may have availed
himself of existing documents, or of traditional statements pre-
served with sufficient care to have the value of documents, is
very possible. And if a writer of sufficient authority should
have stamped such documents incorporated into his narrative
with the seal of his approval, then they come to us with the
same weight, as regards his belief in their substantial accuracy,
as if they were entirely his own. Tables of genealogy, indeed,
he may have taken, just as he found them in the registers
or the traditions of the people, without intending to vouch for
their accuracy; and inaccuracy in these should be regarded
as no more invalidating the general truthfulness of the genea-
logy or of the history at large, than the omission of certain
names in the genealogy of the Saviour in St. Matthew's gospel
is supposed to have such an invalidating effect. The reader will
not be displeased by the introduction here of an extract from
Dr. Hannah's Bampton Lecture for 1863, Lect. v., p. 151, 2,
in reference to the employment of earlier materials, and the use
of traditions existing in the author's time:-"It is important
to point out that the principle which has been thus asserted,
stands in the strongest possible contrast to the theories which
would disintegrate the books of Scripture, and distribute them
among the earlier documents of which they are alleged to be
compounded. That view is destructive of all real authorship,
as claimed for the several writings in their existing form; an
ORGANIC STRUCTURE AND DIVISIONS.
319
authorship, which in many instances is sufficiently ascertained,
though in others, when it has not been decided by testimony, it
forms a legitimate subject for critical enquiry. That authorship,
be it known or unknown, rests in each case with the inspired
writer who produced the book acknowledged in the canon; and
the belief that he availed himself of earlier materials, would no
more entitle us to rend his work in pieces and re-assign its frag-
ments to imaginary claimants, than the same argument would
destroy the rights of an uninspired historian to the work which
he had moulded into unity, and impressed with the full stamp
of his own intellectual character from such materials as he was
able to command.'
""
As regards this book of Genesis, however, even distinguishable
documents characterised by their own peculiarities, genealogical
tables which were possibly preserved from earlier times than
those of the writer of the book, and adopted by him perhaps
only on their recognised authority, and episodes and narratives
more or less complete in themselves, while less closely connected
with those preceding or following them than in their own
internal contents, are not the only or the principal subdivisions
of the book, though they are often the natural subsections of
the greater portions. These latter, forming the larger structural
divisions of the entire book in its organic integrity, claim our
attention first.
1. Besides the Exordium which consists of the first chapter and
the three first verses of the second, the book consists of a series
of Toledoth, generations, or histories founded on genealogical
relations, but in most cases embracing much more than the
particulars of family descent. In some cases these particulars
of family descent occupy a very subordinate place, as in that
commencing at Gen. vi. 9, where the history of Noah contains
only the mention of his three sons; while in one case, namely
the first, commencing at ii. 4, "The generations of the heavens
It seems strange that Ranke and others, who recognise the expression, "These
are the generations," as generally an initial and not a terminal formula, should
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
320
and the earth," it is only in a highly figurative sense that the
genealogical idea is at all implied. This figurative representa-
tion is indeed in full keeping with the allegorical nature of the
representation in at least the first part of this portion as already
pointed out, and it is only in the second of these divisions of
family history, commencing with chapter v., that the true and
literal sense of the word is implied. This is the true beginning
of the genealogical history which it is the author's design to
trace down from Adam to the twelve patriarchs, and accordingly,
while each of the other sections begins with the formula, "These
are the generations," this fifth chapter commences with the
fuller and more formal expression, "This is the book of the
generations," the Sepher Toledoth, from Adam in the line of
Seth. We have then first the Exordium, then,-(1.) "The
generations of the heavens and the earth," the mystical genera-
tions, from ii. 4 to the close of ch. iii., and the sequel in ch. iv.
to the birth of Seth.-(2.) "The book of the generations of
regard it in the latter character in Gen. ii. 4. It is vain to urge that the pronoun
these (7) may as properly refer to things preceding as following, and to say that
it is used five times in chap. x. with a retrospective signification. It is not on the
nature of the phrase itself, that its initial character here depends, but on the invariable
use of this particular expression, "These are the generations," as a superscription
throughout the remainder of the book. It is also to be noted that Ranke mistranslates
the word Toledoth in this instance. He says that in Gen. ii. 4 the meaning is, Diess
ist die Entstehung, this is the origin of the heavens and the earth. It has been
noticed on a former occasion, that it is not the generation, in the sense of the
generating, which Toledoth could not signify, but the generations or genealogical
descendants, and in a wider sense the offspring and family history in a descending
line, that this word denotes. See Untersuchungen ueber den Pentateuch, i. p. 160.
The same remark applies to the title of the Elohistic narrative, the "Book of Origins,'
adopted by Kuenen from Ewald in his work, The Pentateuch and Book of Joshua
Critically Examined, as translated by the Bishop of Natal, chap. xv. p. 33. In no
sense could this title be properly used, except we were to understand the first origin
of the successive descending steps in the narrative. The plural form, however, shows
that the word Toledoth denotes the successive steps themselves, these being products
not origins. It is curious that while Ranke considered it of moment to the unity of the
book to insist on the retrospective import of this phrase here, as tending to disprove
the partition at ii. 4, which he calls the rρŵтov eûdos, later writers, as Kuenen and
Colenso, favour the same view of it, as not wishing to give this phrase, especially as
an initial formula, to the Jehovist.
19
(
1 "The first step in what may be technically called the narrative of history is
taken at the beginning of the fifth chapter of the book of Genesis, in the words,
This is the book of the generations of Adam,'-words which are followed by the
briefest possible summary of the previous account of creation, and then by the order
of a lineage, and then the regular chronicle of dates and ages."-Dr. Hannah,
Bampton Lecture, 1863, Lect. v., p. 164.
ORGANIC STRUCTURE AND DIVISIONS.
321
Adam," ch. v. to vi. 8, where Noah is introduced on the scene.
-(3.) "The generations of Noah," containing the history of
Noah and his family until his death, from vi. 9 to the end
of ch. ix.—(4.) “The generations of the sons of Noah," describ-
ing their descendants, the overspreading of the earth, and the
scattering of men abroad by the Confusion of Tongues, from
the commencement of ch. x. to xi. 9.-(5.) "The generations
of Shem," in the line of Arphaxad to Abram, Nahor, and
Haran, the sons of Terah, from xi. 10 to 26.—(6.) “The genera-
tions of Terah," containing the history of Abraham to his
death, Terah not Abraham being made the head, as the chosen
race was to be derived, not merely from Abraham in the
male line, but from Terah in the female line also, through
Sarah and Rebekah. Terah is therefore made the head of this
descent as including both the male and female lines. This
section extends from xi. 27 to xxv. 11. It does indeed seem
strange that "The generations of Abram" should not form a
distinct title, if we consider the important place he holds in this
history. If that title had ever existed, it will shortly appear
that its probable place was immediately before the last clause of
xii. 4.-(7.) "The generations of Ishmael," from xxv. 12 to e. 18.
—(8). "The generations of Isaac," containing his history and
that of his family to his death, extending from xxv. 19 to the end
of ch. xxxv.—(9.) "The generations of Esau," ch. xxxvi. 1 to
v. 8.-(10.) "The generations of Esau," in Mount Seir, xxxvi.
9 to xxxvii. 1.—(11.) "The generations of Jacob," containing the
remaining history of Jaoob and his sons to the date of his own
death and that of Joseph, from xxxvii. 2 to the end of ch. 1. and
the close of the book. Thus the entire book consists of twelve
principal sections including the introductory portion, in which
divisions the history is successively carried on, on the principle of
genealogical descent, some of these sections which relate only to
collateral branches and less closely concern the immediate object
of the writer, being brief and not resolvable into lesser divisions,
while others are full and extensive, and naturally divide them-
21
322
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
selves according to their subject matter into smaller portions,
which are in some cases less closely connected than in others.
with the preceding or following parts, but still always help on
the general course and progress of the history.¹
We have to notice here a peculiarity in this organic structure
and arrangement of the history, that bears in an important
manner on the present inquiry. It will be found that while,
generally speaking, in each of these successive Toledoth the nar-
rative in general is carried down to the close of the period em-
braced in it, at the commencement of each succeeding portion
there is for the most part a brief repetition of so much of the
previous account as is needed to make it an intelligible
narrative in itself,-a peculiarity which will be found to
extend to the lesser subdivisions also. In some instances
this resumed narration is as concise as possible, and in others
more full. Thus the first of these Toledoth, commencing
at ii. 4, just in the slightest manner alludes to the day in
which God created the earth and the heavens as set forth in the
first chapter. Then the second portion, v. 1., contains a brief
but more explicit reference to the same first chapter, and the
account in it of the day in which God made man in his image
and likeness, male and female, giving them the name Adam and
This organic structure is very partially and imperfectly recognised by Davidson.
He first remarks, p. 135, that "the book of Genesis may be divided into two leading
parts, viz., chapters i.-xi., and xii.-1." He then subjoins, "These two great divisions
contain eleven minor parts, viz.: i. ii. 4; ii. 4-iv. 26; v. 1-vi. 8; vi. 9-ix. 29;
x. 1-xi. 9; xi. 10-26; xi. 27-xxv. 11; xxv. 12-18; XXV. 19-xxxv. 29; xxxvi. ;
xxxvii. 1-1. 26. Most of these have appropriate titles." If he had fixed the
boundaries correctly, and recognised the title as the indication of a new section, he
would have perceived that all his subdivisions after the first have appropriate titles.
That he did not take the title as a guide, but divided on other considerations is apparent
from his making but one section of ch. xxxvi. instead of two, and his commencing the
next section at the first, instead of the second verse of ch. xxxvii. The importance
of correctly observing the true commencement of this last, or rather the proper
termination of the preceding section will be seen hereafter. That a subdivision made
without reference to the titles should so well agree with that made according to them,
is so far a confirmation of the correctness of the latter. It will be observed that one.
of his greater parts ending with ch. xi. divides one of the lesser, in the above sub-
division of the book by Davidson. As already noticed, Kuenen, who in this is followed
by the Bishop of Natal, violates the uniformity with which the phrase, "These are
the generations," occurs as a superscription, attaching the first clause of Gen. ii. 4 to
the preceding passage, in order to avoid giving to the Jehovist one of these titles, which
"it is assumed belong especially to the Elohist." Similarly, "The generations of
Isaac, xxv. 19, must on this account be Elohistic. See Kuenen, p. 44.
ORGANIC STRUCTURE AND DIVISIONS.
323
blessing them in the day when they were created. The next,
beginning at vi. 9, "The generations of Noah," recapitulates the
character of Noah, the names of his sons, the degeneracy of
"The
mankind, and God's determination to destroy all flesh.
generations of Noah's sons," at chapter x., not requiring any
fuller recapitulation, as purely genealogical in its early part,
simply repeats the names of Shem, Ham, and Japheth, with a
casual allusion to the flood. "The generations of Shem," at
xi. 10, being merely genealogical has just a similar casual
allusion to the flood. "The generations of Terah," at xi. 27,
repeats that Terah begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran, this having
been only just mentioned in the verse immediately preceding
which closes "The generations of Shem." Next when after the
death of Abraham, "The generations of Ishmael" follows, he is
described as Abraham's son, whom Hagar, the Egyptian,
Sarah's handmaid, bare unto Abraham, though the circum-
stances of his birth had already been fully set forth in the
previous family history of Abraham. And similarly with
"The generations of Isaac" commencing at xxv. 19, Isaac's
paternity, and that of Rebekah his wife, and her relation as
sister to Laban the Syrian, are repeated. At "The generations
of Esau," in ch. xxxvi. 1, Esau's wives are again enumerated,
though with a certain variation from the names mentioned in the
previous accounts of his marriages at xxvi. 34 and xxviii. 9,
to which variation between the several accounts attention will
be drawn hereafter. At xxxvii. 2, "The generations of Jacob,"
we do not find that his sons in general, who had been fully
enumerated with the names of their mothers just at the close of
"The generations of Isaac," are again mentioned. Still there is
a certain resumed mention in so far as it is stated that Bilhah
and Zilpah were wives of Jacob, when it is mentioned that
Joseph was with their sons feeding the flock; and the mention
of Joseph's age as seventeen years takes us back a dozen years
before the death of Isaac already recorded."
Isaac was sixty when Jacob was born, and an hundred and eighty at the time of
324
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
An instance in which the peculiarity now exhibited, as
regards the principal sections, is of especial moment to this
enquiry is in the history of the deluge. Those who maintain
that the book of Genesis is compiled from several narra-
tives, one being by the Elohist as he is named, and another
by the Jehovist, conceive that this history of the deluge
affords strong proof of the combination of two different
accounts. And overlooking the organic subdivision of the
book, and the prevalence of the recapitulation now pointed out,
at the commencement of the successive portions, of particulars,
the mention of which would be needful to make these portions.
more complete in themselves, and thus regarding this history
of the deluge as it now exists to commence with the fifth verse
of the sixth chapter, instead of at "The generations of Noah"
in vi. 9, they have fancied that in the renewed mention of the
particulars with which this division begins, such as Noah's
character, the names of his sons, and the degeneracy of mankind,
with God's determination to destroy all flesh, the narrative of
the supposed Elohist is to be found, as distinguished from the
previous mention of the same particulars attributed to the
Jehovist. But in fact, in the present case, this resumed mention
of previously related circumstances is only in accordance with
the general character of the book as just exhibited, with this
difference merely, that it is more full in its recapitulation than
in other cases. The desire to make this division in itself a com-
plete account of the deluge, and of Noah and his family in con-
nexion therewith, and to trace the terrible event in this complete
narrative of it to an adequate cause, will account for a fuller
repetition of the particulars mentioned at its commencement,
though already described in the preceding division, than takes
his own death. Jacob was therefore an hundred and twenty when Isaac died. Joseph
was thirty when he stood before Pharaoh, and adding the seven years of plenty and
two of famine, he was thirty-nine when Jacob came into Egypt, at which time Jacob
was an hundred and thirty. Joseph, having been seventeen at the time of his sale into
Egypt, was twenty-two years in Egypt when his father came. Hence Jacob was an
hundred and eight when Joseph was seventeen. But he was an hundred and twenty
when Isaac died, so that "The generations of Jacob" goes back twelve years previous
to the death of Isaac.
ORGANIC STRUCTURE AND DIVISIONS.
325
place in other instances. The use of the names of God in these
two passages, which constitute the close of one and the beginning
of another section, as well as in the remainder of this latter sec-
tion, together with another instance in it of repetition supposed
to be attributable to different authorship, will be considered in the
more detailed examination of the successive portions into which
the book is resolvable. Another such instance may be found in
XXV. 19, 20. The so-called Jehovist had given in xxiv. an account
of Isaac's marriage with Rebekah. This is again repeated in xxV.
20, and is assumed to be the Elohist's account of the same event.
But in fact, there is no ground in this repetition for assuming
different authorship. The writer in commencing a new section,
"The generations of Isaac," or family history of that Patriarch
after the death of Abraham, recapitulates so much as is necessary
to give it a certain independent completeness. Hence he men-
tions that Abraham begat Isaac, that Isaac was forty years
of age at his marriage, and that it was Rebekah, the daughter
of Laban the Syrian, whom he married. He then describes the
birth of his children and proceeds with the history thus prefaced.
Another peculiarity of these Toledoth, or principal sections of
the book, is that for the most part at their commencement
there is some note of time, or some event specified which serves
to indicate the date from which each commences. Thus, besides
the Bereshith, "In the beginning," of the Exordium, we have
in ii. 4, "The generations of heavens and earth when they were
created, in the day," etc.; in v. 1, "The generations of Adam,
in the day," etc.; in x. 1, "The generations of the sons of
Noah," to whom "sons were born after the flood;" in xi. 10,
"The generations of Shem," who was a hundred years old and
begat a son "two years after the flood;" in xxv. 19, 20, “The
generations of Isaac," who was "forty years old when he took
Rebekah to wife;" and in xxxvii. 2, "The generations of Jacob;
Joseph was seventeen years old." Thus of the twelve principal
sections we have seven thus characterised, three of the others,
namely the generations of Ishmael, and of Esau in the land
326
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
of Canaan, and in Seir, being more exclusively genealogical,
but all noting the marriage, or the birth of sons, as a point of
departure. It is further to be remarked, that in some of these
cases the note of time, or event indicating the point of departure
of the narrative, is expressed by a gerund-infinitive referring to
the date or fact in an allusive manner, as already known to the
reader by its previous mention. Thus in ii. 4 we have, "In the .
creating of them;" in v. 1, "In the day of Elohim making man ;
and in xxv. 20,❝ Isaac was forty years old in his taking Rebekah
to wife." The characteristic now exhibited with regard to the
principal divisions of the book, and, in particular, the assumptive
and allusive manner of dating last noted, will be found of use
in serving to determine the exact point of division in several of
the lesser subdivisions also. Before we pass on to these we may
remark that the structural organization which has been now
displayed is a strong proof of the unity of design and authorship
of the entire book. And though some of the larger divisions are
resolvable into lesser subdivisions, which in some cases consist
of narratives complete and independent in themselves, yet for
the most part these are so needful to fill up and help on the
history, and fit so well into their respective places, that they
present no real difficulty in the way of admitting the unity
of their authorship. For though some of these lesser divisions
are not so closely connected with those preceding and following
them as others, they all help on the progress of the history,
and tend to make it more complete.
ور
2. As the principal divisions of the book are usually charac-
terised by a sort of recapitulatory preface, or repeat in their
progress such particulars of the previous sections as may be
needed to make them more complete in themselves and in-
dependent, so also the same characteristic will often be observed,
in the subsections into which these are resolvable. Whether
this was designed to render these lesser portions more complete
and independent for the purpose of recitation, either as lessons
for the congregation or for private use, or it resulted from some
ORGANIC STRUCTURE AND DIVISIONS.
327
disposition on the part of the author to preserve a special
structure and organization throughout, certain it is that this
peculiarity will be found to distinguish several of the subsections,
as well as the principal divisions of the book. The subsections
generally will be ascertained and distinguished in the special
examination that is presently to be entered on. It will be neces-
sary here only to point out the instances of this repetition so
often made with the view to render the separate portions more
complete and intelligible in themselves,-partly as exhibiting
more fully the organic structure of the book, and partly because
these repetitions have in some instances been relied on ast
evidences of separate authorship.
The concluding subsection of "The generations of Noah"
extends from v. 18 of ch. ix. to the end of the chapter, and
contains the story of Noah's intoxication and the conduct of
his sons in reference thereto, and the prediction of their future
history in consequence of the same. To render this account
more complete in itself, it is prefaced with the statement in
v. 18, that "the sons of Noah, that went out of the ark, were
Shem, Ham, and Japheth," although this was already sufficiently
indicated, the exit from the ark being therefore now mentioned
only allusively. On the score of this repetition it has been
assumed by the partitionists, that this is the Jehovist's mention
of the names of those who went out of the ark, the previous
mention of the exit of the sons of Noah, whose names had been
also mentioned on their entrance into the ark, being assigned to
the Elohist. Any countenance that this repetition of their exit
from the ark might afford to the supposition of diverse authorship
will vanish, when it is perceived that such repetitions are common
at the commencement of the several subsections, being evidently
intended to make them more complete in themselves.
The succeeding principal section headed "The generations of
the sons of Noah" has two subsections, one genealogical and
ethnical, and the other narrative extending from the first to the
close of the ninth verse of ch. xi. The former represents the
328
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
tribes as already divided "after their families, after their
tongues, in their lands, after their nations." The second sub-
section goes back to the period when the whole earth was of
one speech and language, and again describes the dispersion
and the variation of language from a different point of view,
taking its departure from an event which, as in the case of some
of the principal sections already noticed, is indicated by a gerund-
infinitive" And all the earth was of one lip and one speech;
and it was in their departing from the east, and they found," etc.
The portion entitled "The generations of Terah," is sub-
divided into several lesser narratives more or less complete in
themselves. The first of these extends from xi. 27 to xii. 4, con-
cluding in that verse with Abram's departure from Haran, and his
taking Lot with him. This is evidently a portion complete in
itself, the seeming break at xii. 1, as implied in the English
"now," having no existence in the original where the simple copu-
lative is found. It contains the history of the family up to the
final momentous step, the departure for the land of Canaan. The
next subsection, which relates the arrival and first proceedings
of Abram in the land of Canaan, begins at the last clause of v. 4,
which tells the age of Abram at the time of his departing, this
departure from Haran being put in the assumptive form, "in his
departing from Haran," as having been previously stated his-
torically and directly at the close of the preceding section, other
sections as already remarked, and as we shall further see here-
after, similarly beginning with a note of time and an assumption
of the event last related now only indirectly mentioned. Indeed,
considering the analogy of other portions, and the important
place the Father of the faithful occupies in this history, one can
scarcely help thinking that this section was originally here pre-
faced with the title, "These are the generations of Abram." To
make its story more complete, it repeats the taking of his family
and substance that he had gotten in Haran, Lot's departure with
him, their setting out from Haran to go into the land of Canaan,
and their arrival in that land. All this, except the actual arrival
C
C
F
ORGANIC STRUCTURE AND DIVISIONS.
329
in Canaan, having been implied in the previous subsection has, on
the score of this repetition, been assigned to the Elohist as inter-
polated in the Jehovistic narrative, whereas it is really only the
usual prefatory matter to make the new subsection complete in
itself.
In the course of this subsection it is mentioned that the
Canaanite was in the land when Abram arrived there. In
the next subsection the same fact is again repeated, in connexion
with Abram's return after a short interval spent in the land of
Egypt, the occasion of the repetition being to render the part
of the narrative where it occurs more intelligible.
Then follows the subsection, ch. xiv., which, as in so many
"In the days
other cases, commences with a note of time,
of Amraphel," here specified in a direct form, as not having
been previously mentioned. This passage is very complete in
itself, but connected with the preceding one so far as that, when
reference is made to Lot and to Abram, it finds Lot at Sodom
and Abram at Mamre, where the previous chapter had left them.
This, however, is not merely assumed, but made the subject of
express mention when they first appear in the narrative. And
to give greater completeness and independence to the story, Lot
is described as "Abram's brother's son who dwelt in Sodom,"
and Abram as "Abram the Hebrew," who "dwelt in the plain
of Mamre the Amorite." The mention of these particulars, so
well known in the previous narrative, affords as much difficulty
if the passage is assigned to the Jehovist, as if it be given to the
Elohist; and hence Dean Stanley and others seem disposed to
regard it as a more ancient document incorporated in the history
at its proper place. It might be so; but the repetition of the
particulars now adverted to does not necessitate such a supposi-
tion, as it falls in with the general practice, observable through-
out the book, of repeating in each distinct narrative such
particulars as may have seemed needful to give it greater
completeness in itself. The only real difficulty is presented
by the description of Abram as "the Hebrew." But this is
330
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
expressed in the subjectivity of the messenger that came to
inform him of what had happened, not of the writer himself.
One that had escaped from the disaster, a native of Palestine,
would think and speak of Abram as "the Hebrew," whether
this description be referred to his descent from Eber, or to
his arrival in Canaan from the other side of the river. The
writer throws himself into the spirit of the fugitive, and repre-
sents him therefore as telling "Abram the Hebrew" what had
happened.
The fifteenth chapter, which has also a note of time referring
to what was previously mentioned,-" After these things,
contains an account of God's appearing to Abram, and
promising him a son notwithstanding his complaint of child-
lessness, with an engagement that his seed should possess the
land from the river of Egypt to the Euphrates. Then the next
chapter contains an account of Abram's connexion with Hagar,
her flight and return, and the birth of Ishmael. Now, these two
narratives are quite distinct and complete in themselves, but at the
point where they meet, we find a striking instance of repetition.
In xvi. 1, 2, we are told that Sarai, Abram's wife, was childless,
that she had a maid named Hagar, an Egyptian, and that
she proposed to Abram, as the Lord had restrained herself from
bearing, that he should enable her to obtain children by Hagar.
And we are informed that Abram hearkened unto her voice. Im-
mediately after, however, in v. 3, we are told that Sarai, Abram's
wife, took Hagar her maid, the Egyptian, after Abram had dwelt
ten years in the land of Canaan, and gave her to Abram to wife.
The repetition of this with the same expressions designating Sarai
as Abram's wife, and Hagar as her maid and an Egyptian, has been
supposed to indicate that these passages have been put together
from different original sources, the first, second, and third verses
being by some assigned to three different authors. The repetition,
however, may much more simply and naturally be explained by
supposing that verses 1 and 2 belong to the previous narrative,
with which they very readily connect themselves, inasmuch as
""
W
ORGANIC STRUCTURE AND DIVISIONS.
331
the promise of seed which should possess the land is thus con-
trasted with Sarai's barrenness, while she, despairing of the
fulfilment of the promise in seed born of herself, suggests how its
accomplishment may be otherwise brought about. Here, indeed,
as elsewhere, the connexion is lost by the English "now" at the
commencement of ch. xvi. But this represents only the Hebrew
1, which might even be adversative and rendered but. At any
rate, there is nothing to hinder, and much to recommend the
joining of xvi. 1, 2 to the subsection contained in ch. xv. And
then the new subsection, containing the story of Hagar's flight,
commences with the customary repetition sufficient to make it
complete in itself, the note of time being added to this prefatory
matter with the same allusive reference to the particular by
which the time is reckoned, as observed before in similar cases:
"After ten years of Abram to dwell in the land of Canaan."
This seems a much more probable solution of the difficulty than
the supposition that a compiler should so foolishly have repeated
the same matter from different sources, as the partitionists
maintain here solely on the ground of the repetition itself.
The next instance of similar repetition offers itself at the close
of ch. xvi. There we have it stated in v. 15, that "Hagar bare
Abram a son, and Abram called his son's name, which Hagar
bare, Ishmael." Moreover, the narrative has already given
sufficient indication of Abram's age at this time. His union.
with Hagar took place, as we are told in e. 3, after he had dwelt
ten years in Canaan, his age at his removal to that country from
Haran having been previously said to have been seventy-five.
Thus the connexion with Hagar was formed at eighty-five, and in
due course Hagar conceived and bare Ishmael. But though all
this is quite clear, still at the end of the chapter, immediately after
the preceding statement of the birth of this son, Abram's age at
his birth is specified; and even if it might have occurred to the
writer to repeat the age, there was no sufficient reason for adding
the clause, "When Hagar bare Ishmael to Abraham." Accord-
ingly this repetition has been made a ground of assigning the
332
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
last verse to a different author from the writer of the preceding.
It is a better ground, however, for detaching it from the pre-
ceding section, and placing it as the prefatory commencement
of the next subsection with the customary recapitulation.
This will then commence with the renewed mention that
"Abram was fourscore and six years old when Hagar bare
Ishmael to Abram," the mention of this event being, as in
the note of time in the other instances already mentioned
and to be remarked hereafter, given in the allusive form,-
"Abram was fourscore and six years old at Hagar bear-
ing Ishmael to Abram,"-this event having been just before
stated directly, and therefore now only alluded to as already
known. And then the narrative proceeds to say, that when
Abram was ninety years old and nine, Jehovah appeared unto
him. The reference to Abram's age at Ishmael's birth in the
commencement of this new section was conducive to its complete-
ness and independence, inasmuch as Abram, doubtful of the pros-
pect of a son by Sarai, refers to Ishmael as more likely to fulfil
the promise, and says, "O that Ishmael might live before thee."
And then in connexion with this, the mention of Abram's age in
xvii. 1 serves to indicate the age of Ishmael when he was cir-
cumcised, within the limit of the 23rd verse, which as we shall
presently see is the conclusion of this section, that age being
again mentioned in v. 24.
Another instance of this repetition, as just intimated, will be
found after the history of the institution of circumcision in ch. xvii.
That chapter begins by stating that Abram was ninety years old
and nine when Jehovah appeared to him. After setting forth the
various particulars and promises connected with the command
to circumcise himself and his household, it states in e. 23 that
"Abraham took Ishmael his son, and all that were born in his
house, and all that were bought with his money, every male
among the men of Abraham's house; and circumcised the flesh
of their foreskin in the self-same day, as God had said unto him."
This narrative is here complete; yet immediately after we find
i
1
ORGANIC STRUCTURE AND DIVISIONS.
333
the same particulars specified again, Abraham's age, and
Ishmael's, which were both already implied in the previous
account, and the circumcising of Abraham and the men of his
house :-" Abraham was ninety years old and nine, when he was
circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin. And Ishmael his son
was thirteen years old, when he was circumcised in the flesh of
his foreskin. In the self-same day was Abraham circumcised,
and Ishmael his son, and all the men of his house born in the
house, and bought with money of the stranger, were circum-
cised." Now if this latter passage belongs to the preceding
section, we have a quite needless repetition of a long series
of particulars, while at the same time we have in the next
chapter an entirely new subject, on a new occasion, commencing
with the words, "Jehovah appeared unto him," not to Abraham,
a manner of commencement not to be expected in a perfectly
new passage. But if we take the verses containing the repeti-
tion as an introduction to this new subsection, we explain the
repetition, as in accordance with the custom of the writer to give
a recapitulatory preface to his new sections, and we remove the
abruptness of the commencement of ch. xviii. We have also
here again to remark the agreement of this as a commencement
with so many other instances, in the allusive form in which the
matter connected with the indication of time is mentioned, as
already known by the statement of it at the close of the previous
section:-" Abraham was ninety years old and nine in his cir-
cumcising the flesh of his foreskin." But it ought to appear that
some reason existed for repeating in this introduction the matter
which had been just previously told. That will be found in the
connexion between Abraham's obedience to this trying command,
which was the implied condition of his having a son, and the
renewed appearance of Jehovah to repeat the promise shortly
after. The expression repeated in this passage, "on the self-
same day," will in this part, taken separately from the preceding
passage, mean the self-same day when he was ninety-nine years
old, just as in the previous use of the same expression it not
334
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
?
merely denotes the day Jehovah appeared to him, but that on
which he was ninety-nine years old.
Again an instance of like repetition, with the same allusive re-
ference to the event from which it sets out, will be found in ch.
xix. 29, “And it came to pass, in Elohim destroying the cities
of the plain, that Elohim remembered Abraham, and sent Lot
out of the overthrow, when he overthrew the cities in the which
Lot dwelt." Here the repetition falls in with the Elohistic
character of the passage, as a supposed evidence of different
authorship; and this verse is accordingly regarded as the
Elohist's account of the overthrow of the cities of the plain, the
previous narrative being the Jehovist's history of the same
event. Indeed, apart from the Elohistic character of the verse,
there is nothing unreasonable in regarding it as a concluding
recapitulation of the preceding history. It seems, however, more
in accordance with analogy to treat it as the recapitulatory pre-
face to the story of Lot and his two daughters. Preparatory to
this tale of wickedness, the divine vengeance on the cities of the
plain for like abominations is indicated, and at the same time it
is intimated that the divine interposition by which Lot was de-
livered was not for the sake of himself or his wicked daughters,
but for Abraham's sake. By this means the divine favour as
exerted on behalf of so undeserving a household cannot be adduced
as an objection to the moral government of God, or an encourage-
ment to such vice. The Elohistic character is thus accounted for
also. The author's thoughts were directed merely to the divine
origin of the interposition, and therefore, as will be more fully
shown hereafter, Elohim is the name suitable to the occasion.
The next subsection seems to extend from Abraham's journey
southward, xx. 1, to the birth and circumcising of Isaac, there
being, as will be noticed hereafter, a close connexion between the
close of ch. xx. and the commencement of xxi.
Then taking
the mention of Abraham's age in xxi. 5, "at Isaac his son being
born to him," and this allusive mention of Isaac's birth, as indi-
cating, after the example of other instances, the commencement
ORGANIC STRUCTURE AND DIVISIONS.
335
of a new story, the passage describing the circumstances which
occasioned Sarah's displeasure, and the consequent casting out of
Hagar and Ishmael, down to Ishmael's marriage, may be regarded
as a new subsection; and we may thus explain the fulness of the
description in v. 9 of Ishmael as "the son of Hagar the Egyptian,
which she had borne unto Abraham," as adding to the com-
pleteness of this portion, though it would suffice in a continu-
ous and undivided narrative to have simply named him.
The partitionists assign this and the preceding verse to the
compiler of the entire, called by Davidson the Redactor. The
repetition, as we have seen, affords no ground for assuming
a different author; but they wish to make the second departure
of Hagar to be only another version of her previous flight, and
the supposed Redactor must accordingly invent a cause for the
second flight which he makes this passage to describe.
We now pass over a number of portions distinct and complete
in themselves, but not presenting any instances of the reca-
pitulation we have been observing, except those which occur at
the commencement of the principal sections or Toledoth in xxV.
12 and 19, 20, which have been already noticed. The subsection,
however, which commences with xxvi. 1 and extends to the end
of v. 33, presents a slight instance of this characteristic allusion
in the reference to the first famine that had been in the days
of Abraham, as distinguished from that which now takes place,
and which leads Isaac to go and sojourn in the country of the
Philistines.
The two last verses of ch. xxvi., describing Esau's marriages,
are wholly unconnected with the subject of what precedes, but are
needful to explain the last verse of the next chapter, and therefore
properly belong to it, and form the commencement of a new sec-
tion. Having thus, apart from anything in the form of expres-
sion separated these from what precedes, and connected them with
the sequel, we notice, as confirming our previous observation of
the significance of the note of time at the commencement of a
new section, the mention of Esau's age when he married. But
336
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
as nothing had been previously said of his marriages, the
allusive form of reference to them is not adopted here, but they
are mentioned in a direct historical manner. Then the section
which commences with this mention of Esau's marriage, and
describes the blessing surreptitiously obtained by Jacob, extends
to the consequent sending of Jacob to Padan-Aram to Laban.
This subsection extends to the end of xxviii. 4, and a new
section commences at v. 5, with repetition of Isaac's sending
Jacob away, and a renewed description of Laban as "the son of
Bethuel the Syrian, the brother of Rebekah, Jacob's and Esau's
mother." This repetition, strange in an unbroken narrative,
comes quite naturally, as in other cases, at the beginning of a
new section. It seems to make the narrative of this important
part of Jacob's history complete in itself, and is in exact
accordance with the other instances exhibited.
Then the portion which describes Jacob's return extends from
xxxii. 1 to xxxiii. 17, and leaves Jacob at Succoth. A new
subsection then begins with Jacob's settlement in Shechem and
relates the story of Dinah. In the prefatory verse prefixed to
this narrative it is said that "Jacob came to Shalem a city of
Shechem, which is in the land of Canaan, when he came from
Padan-Aram." This latter clause is supposed to be an inter-
polation, as unnecessary to the history which has already had
Jacob in several other places since he came back from Syria.
But in fact, this mention of the return from Padan-Aram is only
a repetition to give fulness to the new story and mark its place
in the narrative. Taken in immediate connexion with the
previous verse, it would indeed seem strange as thus mentioning
that the arrival at Shalem was on the return from Padan-Aram.
But as the commencement of a new section, it naturally, and in
accordance with other subsections, indicates a point of time, for
which purpose, not the immediately preceding event, but the
general period of the return from Syria is adopted as sufficiently
exact in the writer's mind. This more general note of time,
instead of the last mentioned particular, indicates a suspension
ORGANIC STRUCTURE AND DIVISIONS.
337
of continuity in the writer's thoughts, as natural when entering
on a new subject. Perhaps, indeed, this mention of the return
from Syria, taken in connexion with the description of Shalem
as in the land of Canaan, may in the present case be due to the
fact, that this was the first place strictly in the land of Canaan
to which Jacob came on his return from Syria, the places pre-
viously mentioned having been east of Jordan. At any rate, in
a case clearly marked otherwise as the commencement of a new
section, we have the note of time introduced in the same allusive
manner,—“ In his coming from Padan-Aram”—already noticed
in so many other instances, where the particular referred to had
been previously mentioned.
In ch. xxxv. we have an account of Jacob's departure from
Shechem, and of his arrival at Bethel, where he builds an altar,
because God there appeared to him when he fled from the face
of his brother. The death of Deborah, Rebekah's nurse, is then
mentioned, after which in v. 9 it is said that "God appeared
unto Jacob again, when he came out of Padan-Aram, and blessed
him." The unsuitableness of the mention of Deborah's death
in this place has been noticed, as we shall see hereafter, as an
evidence of interpolation. In a continuous narrative, it certainly
does come in awkwardly between . 7 and 9. But if we per-
ceive that . 9 begins a new section, this awkwardness dis-
appears. At the close of the section describing Jacob's arrival
at Bethel, this event having taken place there comes in very
naturally. In . 9 a new section, describing the important
vision which took place there, begins. And in this commence-
ment we have the same note of time similarly expressed as in
xxxiv. 18,-" At his coming from Padan-Aram,"-this being
the second appearance of God to Jacob after his return.
We may now pass to the history of Joseph, and it will be
seen that the first lesser portion ends with Joseph's sale into
Egypt at the close of ch. xxxvii. Then is introduced the
history of Judah's marriage and family relations, and this is
succeeded with a new subsection in which Joseph is in Poti-
22
338
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
phar's house. This new part recapitulates the sale into Egypt,
and the repetition has been taken advantage of to make out that
there were two different accounts of the sale now blended into
one, the purchaser having been originally different in each story.
The interposition of the narrative respecting Judah and his
family would, however, naturally account for the repetition, even
if such repetitions were not common in this book. But even sup-
posing that ch. xxxviii. is here interposed out of its proper place,
the custom of recapitulating certain prefatory matter at the com-
mencement of the several lesser sections, would sufficiently account
for the repetition in the present case. In ch. xli. we have a
slighter instance of this repetition. Joseph on his exaltation
went out from Pharaoh in authority over the land of Egypt, a
section evidently closing with this announcement in v. 45. A
new section then commences describing the course of his admi-
nistration. This begins with a statement, as in other like cases,
of Joseph's age at this important point in his history when he
stood before Pharaoh, and adds that he went out, from Pharaoh
of course, this expression being repeated from the preceding
verse. And here, too, the reference to his standing before
Pharaoh is in the allusive form on which so much stress has
been already laid :-" Joseph was thirty years old in his stand-
ing before Pharaoh.”
An instance of great significance and moment in the present.
enquiry is at the commencement of the part which relates the
arrival in Egypt of Jacob's sons for the purchase of corn, ch. xlii.
The preceding chapter at its close represents the famine as extend-
ing over all lands, Joseph as established in full authority and
having the issue of food at his disposal, and all countries coming
to buy corn from him. While the famine is thus sore in all
lands, Jacob learns that there is corn in Egypt, and bids his
sons go down to buy, but will not send his youngest son Benja-
min. The writer, having thus related the mission of the sons of
Jacob, describes their arrival with others who came to buy,
"for the famine was in the land of Canaan," and tells us that
ORGANIC STRUCTURE AND DIVISIONS.
339
Joseph was governor, and that it was he who sold to all that
came. This repetition of particulars, already so fully set forth
at the close of the previous chapter, has great weight with "The
Layman," as evidence of a combination of different narratives.
He says, "It will be observed that the writer has distinctly
laid down, (1) Joseph's position in Egypt, (2) his selling corn
to the people, (3) the extension of the famine to Canaan, and
(4) the visit of his ten brethren for the purpose of buying corn.
He is ready, therefore, to proceed at once to their reception by
Joseph. Yet strange to say, every one of these four points is
again repeated in the two next verses, before this is entered
upon. And the sons of Israel came to buy grain among those
that came; for the famine was in the land of Canaan. And
Joseph was the governor over the land, he that sold grain to all
the people of the land; and Joseph's brethren came,' etc. (xlii.
5, 6). Is it likely that any writer would have thus needlessly
repeated himself, or have taken such pains to reiterate points on
which he had already fully informed his readers only two or
three sentences before? Regard these verses, however, as part
of a different narrative which the Jehovist here transcribes
verbatim, having replaced the previous portion by his own
composition, and all is simple and natural." Now it is first to
be observed that the repetition marked (4) in this passage is
really no gratuitous repetition at all. In e. 3, "Joseph's ten
brethren went down," etc., the departure of ten is told in opposi-
tion to Benjamin's remaining at home. In . 4 their arrival is
mentioned, and that not simply, but in the company of others
who came with them, perhaps from the land of Canaan. And
this seems of some significance to the narrative; coming in the
crowd of purchasers, they might easily have escaped the notice
of Joseph, who recognised them notwithstanding. The other
repetitions lose all their significance as evidences of compilation,
1 Mosaic Origin of the Pentateuch, p. 35. It will be seen hereafter that other
partitionists leave all this to the Jehovist down to the end of v. 5, notwithstanding
that this verse contains two of the repetitions complained of.
340
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
when it is perceived that a new subsection of the narrative
commences with ch. xlii. 5, and that the writer, according to
his custom, repeats as preliminary to this part of his story the
particulars under consideration, in order to make it more com-
plete and independent. When this is perceived it renders the
whole matter much more simple and natural than the sup-
position of the needless introduction of a portion of a different
writing repeating the same particulars,-so much more simple
and natural, that it seems only necessary to point it out in
order to gain the preference for it. And we may in this
case also perhaps regard the expression, "In the midst of
the comers," as an allusive indication of the date from which
this part of the narrative sets out, so common at the com-
mencement of new sections, and here equivalent to saying
the sons of Israel came at the time already indicated, when
others of all lands were coming.
In xlvii. 27 the narrative of Jacob's settlement and resi-
dence in Goshen till his death and burial commences. It
is true his settlement in Goshen after his arrival in Egypt,
and the gift to him of a possession there, were previously
mentioned; but this being the commencement of a new
subsection, the same particulars are repeated: "And Israel
dwelt in the land of Egypt, in the country of Goshen; and they
had possessions therein.”
It will now perhaps be admitted that the examples of this
kind of repetition are sufficiently numerous to establish it as
one of the marked characteristics of the structure of the book.
And if in some cases the subdivision might be less apparent but
for the repetition at those particular places, yet the prevalence of
it in more decided cases will justify the supposition of a sub-
division as thus marked in the more doubtful instances. The
indications ascertained in several instances, in the case of the
principal sections, become a guide for the partition of the sub-
ordinate sections also. It may, indeed, have been that these
2
ORGANIC STRUCTURE AND DIVISIONS.
341
subdivisions had no other distinguishing marks in the original
writing, than these very evidences of a resumption of his subject
after a pause and suspension of his thoughts in the writer's
mind. But the phenomenon of these repetitions having to be
explained, the manner of accounting for them, which has now
been proposed, it may be said with confidence, is much more
probable, than that a writer compiling his narrative from
several existing documents, or interpolating his own account
with sentences adopted from another, should in the most need-
less manner have repeated the same particulars with only slight
verbal differences. And it is to be observed that these repeti-
tions are not given in the form of authorities cited, but incor-
porated into the substance of the narrative. Such a supposition
as this is only one degree less improbable, than that the author
writing entirely from himself should have in this manner im-
mediately repeated his own statements but just made.
-
This view of the organic structure of the book brings our
general observations to a close, and we may now proceed to the
special examination of the several portions in detail.
342
SPECIAL EXAMINATION.
I.-EXORDIUM.
CH. I., II. 1-3. ELOHISTIC ACCOUNT OF CREATION.¹
THE reasons for limiting this passage to the third verse of the
second chapter have been already discussed, and will be again
adverted to, when the next section is under consideration.
The passage is strictly Elohistic, the LXX. uniformly observing
the same usage, ó cós. The subject being the creation of the
universe in its widest generality, and in its most material
aspect, the writer seems quite naturally to have designated the
Creator by the term most applicable to him in the character of
abstract deity, a term in its import significant of his omnipo-
tence. Hengstenberg remarks that as regards the creation of
man in God's likeness, it would have been improper to have
used Jehovah. So far as Jehovah is expressive of the one
attribute of eternal self-existence, there could be no resemblance
from the very nature of the case in a created and therefore not
self-existent being. But that the author adopted Elohim
throughout with a design, as Hengstenberg thinks, of represent-
ing in these early chapters the gradual transition, in man's appre-
hension, from Elohim to Jehovah seems quite too artificial a
supposition. The nature of the subject, the display of the
divine power in creation, rather than the introduction of God
in personal relations with mankind, seems to have led to the
1 In this and similar instances throughout the sequel, the words Elohistic and
Jehovistic are used, not to denote supposed different authorship, but the prevailing
name of God adopted in each passage, whether Elohim or Jehovah.
CH. I., II. 1–3.
343
spontaneous adoption of the general, in preference to the special
and proper name. The only place in which the proper name
would have been otherwise more suitable, as representing God
in personal relation to man at his creation, is one in which, for
the cause just mentioned, as noticed by Hengstenberg, that
proper name would have been quite inapplicable, as more than
any other name expressive of the difference rather than the
likeness between the Creator and the created.
The Bishop of Natal, Pent., Pt. ii., p. 175, insists on the
frequency with which the name Elohim is used in this passage:
—“In i-ii. 3 we have only Elohim 35 times, and in xxiv.,
only Jehovah 19 times. Can any one believe that these two
passages were written by one and the same writer ?" How he
makes out that xxiv. contains only Jehovah 19 times it is hard
to discover; but as regards any weight attached to the frequency
of Elohim in the present passage the argument is perfectly
futile. If the writer had both names in common use, and was
otherwise indifferent as to his choice, the general unity of this
passage in substance and in form, and the regularity with which,
at each succeeding mention of God, he is introduced, as it were
with a standing formula, "And God said," "and God saw,"
"and God created," "and God blessed," would have naturally
occasioned the use of the same name throughout, God being
mentioned in no other connexion after the introductory verses.
And then the subject matter being uniformly such as made the
general name more suitable, the whole must be regarded, not as
presenting 35 independent instances of the use of Elohim, as the
Bishop seems to treat it, but as if the word were used only once,
all the repetitions of it being of no more weight in this enquiry,
than the pronoun which might all through be substituted for it
after the first use of the word. This is not the only instance, as
will be seen, in which such a frequent repetition, which takes
place as a matter of course, as it were in a recurring formula,
is relied on by the Bishop as exhibiting so many independent
instances of a particular usage.
344
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
II.-THE GENERATIONS OF HEAVENS AND EARTH.
§. 1. CH. II. 4-III. PARADISE AND THE FALL. JEHOVAH-ELOHISTIC
WITH AN ELOHISTIC PASSAGE.
""
THE reasons for making this section to commence with v. 4,
have been already considered. The uniformity with which the
formula, "These are the generations," stands at the head of
each succeeding principal section of the entire book, the variation
of the expression when we find a concluding formula, such as
"these are the sons, "these are the families," at the close of
genealogies where the other formula stands at the head of the
section, and the impossibility of dividing v. 4 on grammatical
grounds, as well as by reason of the poetical parallelism and
repetition of the ideas expressed, as already noted, make it quite
evident that this is the true point of division between the first
and second sections. Bishop Colenso, Pt. iv., p. 19, quotes
Delitzsch as an authority for dividing the fourth verse, on the
grounds that the heavens and the earth in the first clause have
the articles, while earth and heavens in the second have none,
that the expression "in their creation" in the first clause corres-
ponds to the Elohistic language in v. 2, "in the day of their
creation," and that this clause suits best the first account of
creation in ch. i., in which alone the actual creation of the earth
and heaven is described. As regards the presence of the article,
however, before heavens and earth in the first clause, and its
absence in the second, it has already been observed that this
difference is only apparent. These words in the first clause are
in stat. constr., being governed by Toledoth. The article
belongs to this, and is only transferred according to the rule to
the genitives following. There is no reason, therefore, for
separating the clauses on this ground, as heavens and earth may
be taken indefinitely in the first as well as the second. Then
the expression, "in the day of their creation," does not occur
345
CH. II. 4-III.
at all in v. 2, but in v. 3 there is the expression "which God
created to make," and the word "make" connects this with the
second clause of v. 4, just as much as the word "created" does
with the first. And as to the creation of the heavens and the
earth being only described in the first chapter, it has already been
noted that the expression in v. 4 is not "the generation" in the
sense of the generating or production of them, but the genera-
tions, or events consequent on their creation as having already
taken place. The Bishop doubts the correctness of the division
of v. 4, but observes in regard to it, p. 21:-" In any case the
involved construction in v. 4, when compared with the verses
which precede and follow it, is a sign that it does not proceed
in an independent original form from the pen of either of the
principal writers, but contains expressions of both fused together,
to form the connecting link between two distinct narratives."
He seems wholly unconscious that what he calls the involved
construction is really only an instance of the inversion of ideas
in the parallel clause, which is an occasional ornament in
Hebrew poetry,-the order in the first clause being heavens,
earth, creating, and in the second making, earth, and heavens.
The Jehovistic character of the present passage has already
been noticed, the reason for the adoption of the proper and
personal name, as suited to the anthropomorphic character
of the representation, and at the same time the identification
of the Being thus designated at the outset by a revived or newly
introduced name, with the Godhead as described by the generic
name Elohim, an identification effected by the combination of
both names, have been pointed out, and the cause of the
Elohistic exceptions indicated. The Bishop adduces the anthro-
pomorphisms of this and other Jehovistic passages as a peculi-
arity of the Jehovistic writer (Pt. iv. p. 24). But, in fact, instead
of the anthropomorphisms being an independent characteristic
of the supposed Jehovist, the Jehovistic character of a passage
may rather be due to the use of anthropomorphisms. In the
present passage God is introduced in a highly anthropomorphic
346
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
character, and entering into the closest personal relations with
man. A proper and personal name would in such a case
naturally suggest itself to the writer's mind in preference to the
general term significant of the Deity. But if the name Jehovah,
according to one interpretation of Exod. vi. 3, were of only
recent introduction amongst the children of Israel, the writer,
in choosing it in preference to any proper name previously
in use and more familiar to his readers, would seem to have
thought it desirable on this the first occasion of his using it
to assert by the combination of Jehovah and Elohim, not simply
the godhead, but the exclusive godhead of Jehovah. To have
put such an assertion into the mouth of the tempter or of Eve
would have been plainly out of place, and in that part of the
narrative the choice was therefore between Jehovah and Elohim
simply, the latter being adopted, partly perhaps from an un-
willingness to put the name Jehovah into the mouth of the
tempter on grounds of religious feeling, but at any rate from an
instinctive sense of dramatic propriety, which in subsequent
parts of the book seems to have hindered the writer from putting
this name into the mouth of any not of the chosen race, except
where special reasons for the contrary existed. In conversing
with the tempter, Eve would naturally be represented as following
his usage. In this part of the narrative the LXX. agree with
the Hebrew in using only ὁ θεὸς, while using κύριος ὁ θεὸς in iii. 1
and 8, immediately before and after the part in question; but
they do not uniformly follow the Hebrew throughout, frequently,
and sometimes several times in succession, using ó feòs alone.
The Bishop of Natal adduces the frequent use of Ha-Adamah,
"the ground," in preference to Ha-Eretz, "the earth,” in this
passage as a Jehovistic peculiarity.¹ Though he admits that
some instances are necessary from the special meaning of the
word, as in reference to the tilling of the ground, yet it is plain
he lays great stress on the use of the word in other cases. He
says, "the Jehovist wishes to connect it" (the name Adam)
1 Pt. iv. pp. 22, 23, 25, 26, 29.
CH. II. 4-III.
347
"with Adamah, ground," and again, "the word Adamah may
be repeated purposely throughout the section with special
reference to the name Adam; but the writer appears to have
in
had a partiality for the word." And he refers to vi. 1, 7,
evidence of this partiality. But besides the etymological con-
nexion of the word which has no doubt partly prevailed, as in
ii. 7, the partiality has been mainly due to the alliterative
effect of the frequent repetition of the two words. No room
existed in ch. i. for producing this alliterative effect in
regard to this word, and therefore the word "earth," as
more suitable to the cosmical character of the earth in that
representation, is preferred, "ground" being only used in con-
nexion with the word "creeping,”—a connexion in which he says
the Jehovist never uses it, as if the Jehovist's alleged partiality
for the word Adamah would not have disposed him to use it in
this, as in any other admissible connexion, and as if his abstain-
ing from using it in this particular connexion was not an
indication that no such partiality existed. This alliterative
effect is observable in vi. 1, 7, as in ch. ii. It is a marked
characteristic of the entire book, not distinguishing the parts
ascribed to any one in particular of the several supposed
authors, but generally prevalent. Thus it appears in the
and in many זְרֵעַ זֶרַע עוֹף כָנָף תֹּהוּ וָבֹהוּ Elohistic ch. i., in
other instances, besides the frequent repetitions of the same
phrases, which seem to have had in view the vocal effect in
recitation. Closely connected with this simple alliterative
effect, is the play on sounds in connexion with the double senses
of words. Thus in ch. ii. 25, iii. 1, the man and the woman are
py, naked, and the serpent is D, subtle. Many like
instances will be noticed in the progress of the examination of
the successive portions of the book, as they offer themselves
without being sought for. And it will be seen that passages
which have been separated on other grounds, have in this
peculiarity an evidence of belonging to the same composition.
The reader who searches for instances will find enough.
348
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
6
man
The Bishop of Natal insists on several occasions on the secret
speeches ascribed to the Almighty as a distinctive characteristic.
of the Jehovist, and anticipates a reference to i. 26 as an
Elohistic instance of the same kind, by remarking that this "is
essentially different in character, being merely an expansion of
the creative words, And Elohim said,' v. 3, 6, etc.; and
obviously the statement in i. 26, And Elohim said, let us make
so Elohim created man,' does not at all resemble
the almost perplexed deliberation of the divine being with
himself introduced in iii. 22." So far from the words of
Elohim in i. 26 being merely an expansion of the creative
formula previously used, it is wholly different in its nature, the
one being simply jussive, a command instantly followed by the
spontaneous occurrence of the intended effect, the other a calm
deliberation followed by action on the part of God. Equally
imaginary is the perplexity imputed to the deliberation in this
passage. It is as free from uncertainty, as immediately self-
determined, as the other. The plural form in both, "Let us,"
and "the man is become as one of us," is a resemblance worthy
of note, and indicative of identity in the writer's manner of
thinking and speaking alike of Elohim and Jehovah Elohim, as
of Jehovah alone in xii. 7.
•
§. 2. CH. IV. CHILDREN OF ADAM AND DESCENT IN THE LINE of
CAIN. JEHOVISTIC WITH ONE ELOHISTIC EXCEPTION.
THE Jehovistic character of this passage, and the exceptional
use of Elohim at the birth of Seth, have been already noticed.
The LXX. differ from the Hebrew in using Kúpɩos, ó leòs, and
ὁ
KúρLos ỏ còs indiscriminately in this portion. They have o Ocòs
ó
θεὸς
alone in reference to the birth of Cain, as well as of Seth, and in
the last verse kúptos o eòs in place of the simple Jehovah of
the Hebrew. Whatever be the meaning of this last verse,
plainly Jehovah must be taken only as the later representative
of any proper name of God that may have existed in the primi-
tive language of mankind, if not simply substituted for the
CH. IV.
349
general name of God. Of course we cannot imagine the word
Jehovah, which is purely a product of Biblical Hebrew, to have
existed in this form in that primitive language. And it can
scarcely be supposed that the writer himself, having before him
the fact of a widely spread diversity of language, and the variety
of dialects even in the Shemitic family, to say nothing of the
story of the Confusion of Tongues, or of the express statement
of Exod. vi. 3 as to the recent introduction of the name Je-
hovah, if that passage be so understood, could have imagined
that in its present form it was in use amongst the primitive.
race of men. The present passage being, though distinct and
complete in itself, yet the proper sequel of the former, the use
of Jehovah is continued in it; but the identity of Jehovah and
Elohim having been sufficiently asserted by the combination in
that preceding passage, the latter term is dropped from this,
and Jehovah stands by itself the prevailing proper name of God
in the usage of the author. Still the prevailing Jehovistic
character is not such as to exclude the use of the more general
term in an instance for which it is difficult to assign any
more probable reason, than the almost accidental and unfelt
influence of the faintest possible motives-principally perhaps a
desire to mark a contrast between divine and human agency,
which very frequently throughout this book has quite naturally
suggested the general in place of the proper name. In the
present case, at the birth of Seth, this contrast is implied in the
1 The Bishop of Natal, Pt. iv., p. 245, says that "according to the traditionary
view, Hebrew must have been the language of Paradise, since all the conversations
are recorded in that tongue,-the words of Jehovah-Elohim, those of Adam and Eve,
and of the serpent, and especially the two names given by the man to his wife, ii. 23,
iii. 20, names given with express reference to their meaning in Hebrew. So, too,
after the expulsion from Paradise, the names are pure Hebrew." Can anything be
weaker than this? As if an historian must give the conversations of persons whose
words are recorded, in the language in which they were originally spoken, and not in
his own; or as if the proper names may not be significant translations of names signi-
ficant also in their original form. If it were certain, as it is not improbable, that
Syriac was the language spoken by our Lord and his disciples, and St. John had not
given us the Syriac name, Cephas, of which Peter is the translation, we might have
some objector saying, in reference to the words, "Thou art Peter, and on this rock I
will build my church," here is an uneducated Jewish peasant giving to another a
name that is pure Greek, and even playing on that name with reference to a Greek
word of like sound as its root.
350
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
words of Eve. Man had deprived her of one son, but God has
appointed another in his place. It is true she specifies Cain,
and so might have used the proper name of God also. But then
the contrast between the divine and human, between God's
providence and man's agency, God's goodness and man's mis-
chief, God's disposing and man's purposing, would have been
kept out of view. The tendency to mark this contrast may
operate in a religious mind quite imperceptibly by the force of
a religious habit. It will be seen that this occurrence of Elohim
once in otherwise Jehovistic passages, as well as the single
occurrence of Jehovah in Elohistic, is repeated in subsequent
parts of the book.
III. THE BOOK OF THE GENERATIONS OF ADAM.
THE DESCENT FROM ADAM TO NOAH AND HIS SONS.
ELOHISTIC AND JEHOVISTIC.
§. 1. CH. V.
Ir has already been observed that this is the proper sequel
of the commencing passage to which reference is made ipsissimis
verbis in the two first verses. It has the regular commencing
formula, only more full than in other instances, for reasons
already stated, and extends to the ninth verse of the sixth
chapter, with which a new section commences headed "The
generations of Noah," while the commencing verses of the sixth
chapter form a second subsection of this, the fifth or genealogical
part being the first. The reference to chapter i., at the outset
of this portion, where the words descriptive of the creation of
man on the sixth day are repeated, has occasioned the use
of Elohim at the commencement. The Elohistic phrase used of
Enoch in v. 22 and 24, "Enoch walked with God," is properly
and naturally adopted in order to express the general godliness
of his character. To walk with Jehovah would imply a personal
manifestation of God and actual walking.¹ The word thus
1 The use of the article prefixed to Elohim in this phrase has been already explained
in p. 283.
CH. V.
351
"
adopted continues in use as a matter of course in this verse, and
God is not mentioned again until a reference is made in v. 29 to
the Jehovistic third chapter. This reference has caused the use
of Jehovah in v. 29, the reference being still more exact in the
KúρLos ó còs of the LXX. answering to the Jehovah Elohim of the
place referred to, iii. 17. As the theories of different authorship
assign this passage to the Elohist, and it would not suit these
theories to allow an instance of the use of Jehovah to remain in it,
the Bishop of Natal, Pt. iv. p. 28, says that "v. 29 is a Jehovistic
interpolation, as appears—not only from its containing the name
'Jehovah,' but also-from its referring distinctly to the Jehovistic
section, ii. 4-iv. 26." This is the barest assertion; the thing
to be proved being that the Elohist never uses the name
Jehovah, an instance of its use in the very heart of an Elohistic
passage is rejected, because the writer uses the name and refers
to another passage where it is also used. By such reasoning as
this anything may be proved. He says that probably the
original conclusion of v. 28 was, "and begat Noah;" and that
as in v. 3 it is said that Adam begat, with the omission of the
word son, in his likeness and image, and called his name Seth,
this suggests that the Elohist would not have written in e. 28,
29, as the words now stand, " and begat a son and called his name
Noah." If, then, a man in one instance uses an ellipsis of a
word necessary to the sense, this suggests that another instance
where the word is supplied is a forgery! The Bishop mentions
the connecting of with D, to comfort, as an instance of
derivation, with which he charges the Jehovist in other
instances also. The verb, to rest, is the root of Noah,
and it is a mistake to say that the writer derives it from
D. He does no such thing; the true meaning of "rest" is
implied in the reference to the toil and labour of the hands from
which Noah was to give comfort. The writer knew that his
readers were as familiar as himself with the origin of the name,
and did not think it needful to express that origin at all, but only
to indicate the reason of the name by the reference to toil and
352
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
labour of the hands. Does the Bishop suppose that his Jehovist
did not know his own language, or thought his readers ignorant.
of it? But though the verb D is not given as the source
from which is derived, its use in immediate connexion with
the name of Noah is an instance of the alliterative tendency
already noticed as prevalent throughout this book. Davidson
assigns the interpolation of the words, "a son, and he called his
name," and the words, "saying, This same shall comfort us con-
cerning our work and toil of our hands, because of the ground
which Jehovah hath cursed," to his Redactor. Introd. i. p. 59.
If this theory may have the benefit of a redactor to prop it up
when it cannot stand alone, why may not the advocates of the
unity and Mosaic authorship claim the benefit of a modern
revision to account for the substitution of more recent for ancient
names, such as of Dan for Laish? Until some better argument
for regarding these words as interpolated than arbitrary assump-
tion and circular reasoning is produced, it must remain as an
integral part of this Elohistic passage, and an instance of the
name Jehovah in an Elohistic connexion.¹
§. 2. CH. VI. 1-8. DEGENERACY OF MEN AND GOD'S DETERMINATION
TO DESTROY THEM. JEHOVISTIC AND ELOHISTIC.
THE use of Jehovah, adopted in v. 29 by reason of the
reference there made to iii. 17, is continued in this subsection
1 This kind of reasoning is well described by "The Layman," Mosaic Origin of the
Pentateuch, p. xvi.-xvii. He says, "This mode of reasoning may be fairly thus
represented:There are two sections of considerable length, A. and B., each of
which is distinguished from the other by certain peculiar words and phrases. It so
happens, however, that several of A.'s peculiarities are to be found in B.; not a few
also of B.'s exist unquestionably in A. as well; a circumstance apparently fatal to the
whole argument. An ingenious criticism determines, however, that the words and
phrases are characteristic notwithstanding, but that both sections contain interpola-
tions from the other. All the passages in A. which contain B.'s peculiarities, are
ascribed to the corrections or additions of the later writer. All those in B. which
contain A.'s peculiarities are passages of the earlier writer adopted and incorporated
with his own matter by the later uncorrected. And so the conclusion is drawn that
these peculiarities are certainly characteristic of the two writers, and the idea of a
common origin of the sections A. and B. is quite absurd. Of course all this is quite
possible, but, at the same time it is quite hypothetical, and, as an argument, simply
worthless. Even its ingenuity cannot make amends for the large amount of assump-
tion and circle-reasoning which it involves, or justify us in adopting such a line of
argument in determining the point in question."
کند
CH. VI. 1–8.
353
to its close, with the exception of the phrase, "the sons of
Elohim," in v. 2, and the repetition of the same expression in
v. 4. The use of Elohim in this phrase was in a manner neces-
sitated by the contrast with the daughters of men. Adam being
used in this latter expression, not as the proper name of the first
man, but to designate the race in general, is used generically.
On purely verbal grounds therefore the generic Elohim is
necessary as the contrast. And this reason holds good whatever
be the import of the contrasted expression. The other reason
adduced by Hengstenberg in addition to this depends on the
interpretation, doubtless a true one, yet not acknowledged by all
as such, that the expression, "the sons of God," denotes the
pious worshippers of God as opposed to the irreligious. Adopt-
ing this interpretation, and supposing that the advancement
of men to the knowledge of God as Jehovah was only gradual, he
thinks that "sons of Jehovah" would as yet imply too great an
advancement in the relation of men to God. This manner of view-
ing the question, in accordance with his highly artificial theory,
is quite unnecessary to justify an expression which is plainly the
proper one, apart from all consideration of the meaning of the
contrasted expressions as here used, whether figuratively and with
a moral significance, or in a more real and literal sense. This
use of Elohim in v. 2, and repeated in v. 4, comes in thus as a
matter of course in the Jehovistic part of the passage, but
Jehovah is resumed in v. 3, and in 5-8. In the former of these
passages its resumption was perhaps occasioned by the same
cause that led to the use of it in v. 29, namely a reference to a
previous Jehovistic passage. This reference, however, as regards
v. 3, depends on the meaning assigned to that verse. As it is
rendered in the English Version no such reference is apparent.
That this, however, is not the true rendering is probable from
the early Versions, from the want of usage to justify it, and
from the connexion of the passage. On whatever grounds they
proceeded, the LXX. rendered by kaтaμeivŋ, the Vulgate
by permanebit, and so also the Syriac and Arabic according to
23
354
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
Gesenius. There is no usage to justify the sense of "strive,” as
the word is here construed with the preposition in. In Eccl.
vi. 10 the Hiphil form is used in this sense with Dy, with. The
Niphal form, 13, is rendered in this sense by the Vulgate and
English Version in 2 Sam. xix. 9, (10), where it is used without any
preposition following. But this is properly rendered reflexively
кρivóμevos by the LXX. The people judged or condemned them-
selves for their rebellion after the death of Absalom. In the
passage at present under consideration, the shortening of man's
life, as compared with the great ages mentioned in the preceding
part of the passage, is probably intimated. He, like the inferior
animals, is but flesh, and shall not always live; the word always,
or for ever, being used to denote the protracted ages just men-
tioned, by a natural hyperbole. In future his days should
dwindle to a hundred and twenty years. Unhallowed marriages
were made, and this is the penal consequence. There were
giants in those days, and D, even-not also, as in the English
Version-even after these unhallowed unions and the consequent
shortening of man's life, still mighty men which were of old,
men of renown, were born to them. This being the connexion,
the spiritual meaning given to the words by the English Version
seems less suitable to it than that of the ancient Versions. We
might, indeed, understand the approaching destruction of man-
kind, after a probation of one hundred and twenty years, to be
intended, in which case this section goes back, as in other cases,
some years before the point arrived at in v. 32. But even so
the rendering of these Versions is equally applicable, while it is
supported by better evidence and authority. Gesenius gives pro-
bably the true rendering of in this place: "My spirit or
breath shall not always rule or act in man; and he refers to
Ps. civ. 30 as illustrating this use of the words, "my spirit.""
""
1 Ps. civ. 29, 30, "Thou takest away their breath (7), they die and return to
their dust. Thou sendest forth thy Spirit (7), they are created." Fuerst, s.v.,
explains thus :—“My spirit shall not rule over (≥) men, i.e. I will take back the divine
The
spirit in men (Gen. ii. 7), which is of divine origin, and rules over men."
reference to Gen. ii. 7 shews that he has in view the shortening or approaching
destruction of human life.
CH. VI. 18.
355
In both places spirit denotes the breath of life, which in Gen.
ii. 7 God is said to have breathed into the nostrils of the newly-
formed man, the word there used, and here, being
both frequently employed to designate equally simple breath
and the principle of animate life.¹ If this be the true meaning
in the present case, the reference to Gen. ii. 7 becomes quite
apparent, and the use of Jehovah in consequence is justified;
the reference, as in v. 29 to iii. 17, being here also still more
exact in the kúpios ô còs of the LXX. answering to the Jehovah
Elohim of Gen. ii. 7. Then in sequence with the use of Je-
hovah thus occasioned, it continues to be employed in the rest
of the passage, except in the repetition in due course of the
expression, "sons of God," in v. 4, this natural sequence being
perhaps confirmed by an intuitive perception of the greater
fitness of the proper name to the extremely personal and
anthropomorphic representation of the Divine Being in this
passage, in which God is described as repenting that he had
made man and grieved in his heart, while he resolves in himself
to destroy man whom he had created.
While the LXX. have kúpios á Oeòs for Jehovah in the first,
fifth, and eighth verses, they have only eòs to represent the
Jehovah of the sixth and seventh verses, though they agree with
the Hebrew in the use of Ocòs alone in the expression, "the sons
of Elohim,” in verses 2 and 4. Thus in all the really important
instances in this passage they either had a different usus in their
copies, or have disregarded the reading of the copies before them.
The commencing verses of ch. vi. to the end of v. 8 have been
assigned to the Jehovist, and treated as the commencement of
the Jehovistic account of the deluge, only that Dr. Davidson
gives the three first verses, and the fourth with the exception
of the words," and there were giants in those days," to his
Redactor, while the Bishop of Natal, Pt. v. Crit. Anal. p. 17, 18,
after Hupfeld, regards the entire of v. 4 as a later introduction,
1 Thus 7 is used in vii. 15 of animals in general, "wherein is breath
of life."
356
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
and assigns it to his Deuteronomist. No question exists as to the
sameness of the writer of this verse and the parts of Deutero-
nomy where the sons of Anak are mentioned, except amongst the
partitionists themselves. The Bishop is right in thinking that the
Nephilim were different from the mighty men of old, who were
a second race sprung from the union of the sons of God and
daughters of men. But his assertion that by these "mighty
men of old" were meant "Nimrod and others, the writer
having here, apparently, lost sight for a moment of the con-
sequences of the deluge," is a perfectly gratuitous assumption,
and one which Hupfeld does not think so certain, as he suggests
that the addition of the words, " of old," was possibly intended
to distinguish the mighty men here spoken of as antediluvians
from the postdiluvians, such as Nimrod. The supposition that
these Nephilim, who are here introduced as the Nephilim, the
race of giants generally believed to have existed in the old
world, and therefore spoken of as well known, were the same
race as the Nephilim said to have been seen by the spies in the
land of Canaan, (Num. xiii. 33), and that the earth here is the
land (1) there spoken of, the subject being thrown in here as
an antiquarian note, like the mention of the Canaanites and
Perizzites as existing in the land of Canaan at the time of
Abraham's arrival there, xii. xiii., is also quite gratuitous. In
Num. xiii. 33 the Nephilim first mentioned are indefinite, the
article in the expression
being due to the stat.
constr. with the particle as shown already. The spies say,
"We saw Nephilim, the sons of Anak, greater than the Nephi-
lim, '', and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers."
Their fears made them exaggerate the size of the giants they
saw; these were greater than the giants, namely the famous
Nephilim that were of old. This passage in Numbers, thus
rightly understood, gives no countenance to the notion that the
writer of Gen. vi. 4 refers to a race of Nephilim existing subse-
quently in the land of Canaan, and that he wrote in forgetfulness
of the effects of the deluge. The second Nephilim in Num. xiii.
-
מִן־הַנְפִילִים
CH. VI. 1–8.
357
66
33 may have been the same Nephilim as intended in Gen. vi. 4;
in the first use of the word it means giants indefinitely. The
sons of Anak" in this verse may be rendered definitely or in-
definitely, the proper name not admitting the article. There
was a race of Anakim in the land of Canaan, and the spies may
have intended these, as referred to also in Deut. i. 28, ii. 10, ix. 2.
Or the expression may have been used attributively, in appo-
sition with Nephilim, as a second description of the gigantic
people they saw in the land, and then there will be no ellipsis
of the adjective: "We saw Nephilim, sons of Anak above the
Nephilim."
יָלַד
It has already been shown that this early part of ch. vi. does
not, properly speaking, form any part of the history of the
deluge, but is the concluding part of the preceding section,
bringing down the history of the world to that point at which
the wickedness of men had become so great that God resolves to
destroy the world. The history of the deluge, properly speaking,
commences with v. 9, and forms a new section headed "The
generations of Noah." The impropriety of separating this latter
part from the present section, and joining it to the succeeding
one, as if we had two narratives amalgamated, has already been
sufficiently pointed out. Some other reasons, apart from the use
of the name Jehovah, have been relied on, however, as evincing a
different authorship from the Elohistic part, one being the ascrib-
ing of secret speeches to Jehovah as instanced in v. 3, 7, compared
with ii. 18 and iii. 22, notwithstanding the instance of the secret
speech, "Let us make man," ascribed to Elohim in ch. i. The
particular, however, on which the Bishop seems to lay most stress,
as it is enforced by his favourite numerical argument, is the use
in v. 4 for "begat," as in iv. 18 three times, and six
times in ch. x., while the form 7 is used 28 times in ch. v.
and 27 times in ch. xi. Here the reference to the numbers is
as futile as the argument founded on the frequency of Elohim
in ch. i. was shown to be. On the one hand, in iv. 18 the three
instances are only equivalent to one, the choice at first deter-
of
358
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
mining the rest, and so also in ch. x. On the other hand, in
ch. v. and xi. the number of times the other form of expression
is used is in fact only equivalent to a single instance in each
case, the word first adopted determining all the rest in a recur-
ring formula of this kind. What right the genealogies in x.
and xi. have to be assigned one to the Elohist and the other to
the Jehovist will be considered hereafter.
Another argument greatly relied on by the Bishop of Natal
is the word used in v. 7 to express the threatened destruction, a
word which reappears several times in ch. vii. and is thought to
distinguish the Jehovist, while the Elohist uses a different word
in the latter part of this chapter. In order to distinguish this
word (2) as a Jehovistic mark, it is translated by the Bishop
to blot or wipe out, and the use of such an arbitrary figure gives
an air of peculiarity to the passages in which it occurs. A
little enquiry into the fundamental signification of this word,
which is one of frequent occurrence, will show that the choice
of it in regard to the deluge is not so arbitrary as it appears
from the Bishop's translation, but was quite natural and proper
to the occasion. The word is used frequently of the doing away
of sins, blotting one's name from a book, abolishing the remem-
brance of a thing, doing away with a reproach, and in a general
sense of abolishing or destroying, That the radical idea is not
wipe out, or blot by dry-rubbing, will be manifest from one or
two instances of its use, which this signification does not at all
explain. One of these is in 2 Kings xxi. 13, rendered in the
English Version, "I will wipe Jerusalem as a man wipeth a
dish, wiping it and turning it upside down." Now the last
clause of this verse might have shown that wiping is not the
idea which was in the mind of the writer. When a dish or
bowl is merely wiped, there is no reason for turning it upside
1 The use of these words throughout the book will be more particularly noticed
hereafter.
2 A like air of peculiarity is given in another instance by the use of the word
swarm to represent the Hebrew, the incorrectness of which, as regards the noun,
has been already remarked in p. 80.
CH. VI. 1–8.
359
1
down; but when it is washed, then it is naturally turned on its
face, to allow the moisture to run from it perfectly. Washing
is therefore the idea proper to this passage; and it is necessary
in Num. v. 23: "The priest shall write the curses in a book,
and shall blot them out with the bitter water." Plainly "wash
them out" is the proper expression here. Wash would be as
appropriate as wipe in Prov. xxx. 20, "She eateth and washeth
her mouth;" and in Is. xxv. 8, " God will wash away tears from
all faces," as it is necessary to wash the face after much weeping,
and not merely to dry it, in order to remove all traces of the
tears. This sense also explains Num. xxxiv. 11, where it is said
that the land should “reach unto the side of the sea of Chinnereth
eastward." There is no other instance in which this verb has
the sense of extending to or striking on, but its use is quite in-
telligible if we render by wash: "It shall wash at, or along (y),
the border of the sea of Chinnereth." Its cognate N is used
in Ps. xcviii. 8, Is. lv. 12, and Ezek. xxv. 6, as an expression of
joy, described in the Versions as clapping the hands. Rubbing
would be more proper as an expression of delight, as Avenarius,
Lexicon Ebræum, says, Suffriando manibus, hoc est quando
manus manum tergit, perinde ac si quid inter manus affriaret.
The idea of rubbing the hands may have been connected with
this word, from the action of the hands in washing them. The
are rendered delere, eluere, abradere,
Raphelengii Lex. Arab. This idea of destroying by washing away
is particularly appropriate to the deluge; and as the word is thus
chosen on account of its significance, its use cannot be regarded
as a special characteristic of the writer's style. The word y
with its accompaniment, "from the face of the ground," follows
as a matter of course from the use of, being the natural, and
it might be said, the necessary completion of the figure implied
by that verb. The resemblance therefore to iv. 14, ascribed also
to the Jehovist, is quite accidental. The expression, "the face
of the ground," occurs also in the Elohistic, i. 29. There is a
special reason for the use of a different word in the latter, so
محي,محو Arabic cognates
TT
360
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
called, Elohistic part of this chapter which will be mentioned in
its proper place.
The expression "found grace" is also adduced as a Jehovistic
mark. It will be noticed amongst other expressions alleged to
be characteristic, hereafter to be examined. We may now pass
to the next general section of the book, "The generations of
Noah."
IV.—THE GENERATIONS OF NOAH.
§. 1. CH. VI. 9-IX. 17. HISTORY OF THE DELUGE. ELOHISTIC AND
JEHOVISTIC.
WHILE the entire of the portion headed "The generations.
of Noah" is complete in itself both in form and substance,
embracing a full account of the deluge and carrying on the
narrative to Noah's death, with the customary initial formula
prefixed, and followed by a like formula in the succeeding pas-
sage, it resolves itself into two principal parts, the first compris-
ing the account of the deluge and subsequent blessing of Noah,
together with the covenant of the rainbow, and the second des-
cribing certain particulars in the history of Noah after those
events. From the circumstance that the first of these subsec-
tions contains certain parts in which the name Jehovah occurs,
which might be omitted from the narrative without making
any decided break in its continuity, these parts have been re-
garded by some critics as the work of a Jehovistic interpolater,
while others, such as Dr. Davidson and the critics whom he
represents, have resolved the entire into two independent and
and not wholly consistent narratives of the deluge, which after
subsisting independently were at a subsequent period inter-
woven together, so as to make one history such as we now
possess it. This resolution of the original narratives into their
component parts, and the re-composition of these parts into one
connected narrative, are assumed to have been accomplished by a
pretended compiler. As it is on the supposed possibility of
thus resolving the history of the deluge into two independent
361
CH. VI. 9–IX. 17.
accounts put together by a third person, or of reducing the
history as it now stands to a purely Elohistic narrative by the
removal of supposed Jehovistic interpolations, that the theories
of different authorship as regards the entire book, originating in
the diversity of the names of God, find their principal support,
it will be well to discuss this section at length.
I. The more complex theory may be considered first, as
resting on an additional ground over and above the reasons
adduced for the supposition of the simple Jehovistic inter-
polation of an Elohistic narrative, namely the improbability
that a narrative originally one would admit of being thus
separated into two complete accounts of the same events. That
the copiousness of eastern style, and the abundant repetitions that
occur in certain Hebrew narratives, render this not so unlikely as
it would be in the case of our histories will be perceived by all
who are familiar with the Biblical narratives. How far the
purely Jehovistic passages, with such other parts as have been
made to accompany them for the sake of completing the second
narrative, form an account capable of standing alone as an
original and independent history, will be best judged by pre-
senting the two stories at full length, instead of merely giving
references to the constituent parts of each:
2
Elohistic account of the Deluge.
V
Jehovistic account of the Deluge.
CHAPTER VI.
5 And God saw that the wickednesss
of man was great in the earth, and that
every imagination of the thoughts of his
heart was only evil continually.
6 And it repented the LORD that he
had made man on the earth, and it
grieved him at his heart.
7 And the LORD said, I will destroy
man, whom I have created, from the face
of the earth; both man and beast, and
the creeping thing, and the fowls of the
air: for it repenteth me that I have
made them.
1 The iteration here mentioned is quite different in its character from the simple
repetition of one or two dry facts just previously stated, which has been treated as
an indication of the commencement of a new section.
2 The English Version will answer our present purpose.
362
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
CHAPTER VI.
9 These are the generations of Noah:
Noah was a just man, and perfect in his
generations, and Noah walked with God.
10 And Noah begat three sons, Shem,
Ham, and Japheth.
11 The earth also was corrupt before
God; and the earth was filled with
violence.
12 And God looked upon the earth,
and, behold, it was corrupt: for all flesh
had corrupted his way upon the earth.
13 And God said unto Noah, The end
of all flesh is come before me; for the
earth is filled with violence through them :
and, behold, I will destroy them with
the earth.
14 Make thee an ark of gopher-
wood rooms shalt thou make in the ark,
and shalt pitch it within and without
with pitch.
15 And this is the fashion which thou
shalt make it of; The length of the ark
shall be three hundred cubits, the breadth
of it fifty cubits, and the height of it
thirty cubits.
16 A window shalt thou make to the
ark, and in a cubit shalt thou finish it
above; and the door of the ark shalt
thou set in the side thereof; with lower,
second, and third stories shalt thou
make it.
17 And behold, I, even I, do bring a
flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy
all flesh, wherein is the breath of life,
from under heaven; and every thing that
is in the earth shall die.
18 But with thee will I establish my
covenant: and thou shalt come into the
ark, thou, and thy sons, and thy wife,
and thy sons' wives with thee.
19 And of every living thing of all
flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring
into the ark, to keep them alive with
thee; they shall be male and female.
20 Of fowls after their kind, and of
cattle after their kind, of every creeping
thing of the earth after his kind; two of
every sort shall come unto thee, to keep
them alive.
21 And take thou unto thee of all food
that is eaten, and thou shalt gather it to
thee; and it shall be for food for thee,
and for them.
22 Thus did Noah; according to all
that God commanded him, so did he.
8 But Noah found grace in the eyes
of the LORD.
CHAPTER VII.
1 And the LORD said unto Noah,
CH. VI, 9-IX. 17.
363
CHAPTER VII.
6 And Noah was six hundred years
old when the flood of waters was upon
the earth.
7 And Noah went in, and his sons,
and his wife, and his sons' wives with
him, into the ark, because of the waters
of the flood.
8 Of [clean] beasts, [and of beasts that
are not clean,] and of fowls, and of every
thing that creepeth upon the earth,
9 There went in two and two unto
Noah into the ark, the male and the
female, as God had commanded Noah.
11 In the six hundredth year of Noah's
life, in the second month, the seventeenth
day of the month, the same day were all
the fountains of the great deep broken
up, and the windows of heaven were
opened.
13 In the self-same day entered Noah,
and Shem, and Ham, and Japheth, the
sons of Noah, and Noah's wife, and the
three wives of his sons with them, into
the ark:
14 They, and every beast after his
kind, and all the cattle after their kind,
and every creeping thing that creepeth
upon the earth after his kind, and every
fowl after his kind, every bird of every
sort.
15 And they went in unto Noah into
the ark two and two of all flesh, wherein
is the breath of life.
16 And they that went in, went in
male and female of all flesh, as God had
commanded him;
Come thou, and all thy house, into the
ark: for thee have I seen righteous before
me in this generation.
2 Of every clean beast thou shalt take
to thee by sevens, the male and his
female and of beasts that are not clean
by two, the male and his female.
3 Of fowls also of the air by sevens,
the male and the female; to keep seed
alive upon the face of all the earth.
4 For yet seven days, and I will cause
it to rain upon the earth forty days and
forty nights; and every living substance
that I have made will I destroy from off
the face of the earth.
5 And Noah did according uuto all
that the LORD commanded him.
10 And it came to pass after seven
days, that the waters of the flood were
upon the earth.
12 And the rain was upon the earth
forty days and forty nights.
364
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
18 And the waters prevailed, and were
increased greatly upon the earth; and
the ark went upon the face of the waters.
19 And the waters prevailed exceed-
ingly upon the earth; and all the high
hills that were under the whole heaven
were covered.
20 Fifteen cubits upward did the
waters prevail; and the mountains were
covered.
21 And all flesh died that moved
upon the earth, both of fowl, and of
cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping
thing that creepeth upon the earth, and
every man :
24 And the waters prevailed upon
the earth an hundred and fifty days.
CHAPTER VIII.
1 And God remembered Noah, and
every living thing, and all the cattle
that was with him in the ark: and God
made a wind to pass over the earth, and
the waters asswaged;
2 The fountains also of the deep and
the windows of heaven were stopped,
3
and after the end of
the hundred and fifty days the waters
were abated.
■
•
4..
in the seventh month, on
the seventeenth day of the month.
•
5 And the waters decreased continually
until the tenth month: in the tenth
month, on the first day of the month,
were the tops of the mountains seen.
and the LORD shut
16
him in.
17 And the flood was forty days
upon the earth; and the waters in-
creased, and bare up the ark, and it was
lift up above the earth.
22 All in whose nostrils was the
breath of life, of all that was in the dry
land, died.
23 And every living substance was
destroyed which was upon the face of
the ground, both man, and cattle, and
the creeping things, and the fowl of the
heaven; and they were destroyed from
the earth; and Noah only remained
alive, and they that were with him in
the ark.
CHAPTER VIII.
and the rain from heaven
2..
was restrained;
3 And the waters returned from off
the earth continually :
4 And the ark rested...
upon the mountains of Ararat.
6 And it came to pass at the end of
CH. VI. 9-IX. 17.
365
:
13 And it came to pass in the six
hundredth and first year, in the first
month, the first day of the month, the
waters were dried up from off the earth:
and Noah removed the covering of the
ark, and looked, and, behold, the face of
the ground was dry.
14 And in the second month, on the
seven and twentieth day of the month,
was the earth dried.
15 And God spake unto Noah,
saying,
16 Go forth of the ark, thou, and thy
wife, and thy sons, and thy sons' wives
with thee.
17 Bring forth with thee every living
thing that is with thee, of all flesh, both
of fowl, and of cattle, and of every creep-
ing thing that creepeth upon the earth;
that they may breed abundantly in the
earth, and be fruitful, and multiply upon
the earth.
18 And Noah went forth, and his sons,
and his wife, and his sons' wives with
him :
19 Every beast, every creeping thing,
and every fowl, and whatsoever creepeth
upon the earth, after their kinds, went
forth out of the ark.
forty days, that Noah opened the window
of the ark which he had made:
7 And he sent forth a raven, which
went forth to and fro, until the waters
were dried up from off the earth.
8 And also he sent forth a dove from
him, to see if the waters were abated
from off the face of the ground;
9 But the dove found no rest for the
sole of her foot, and she returned unto
him into the ark, for the waters were
on the face of the whole earth: then he
put forth bis hand, and took her, and
pulled her in unto him into the ark.
10 And he stayed yet other seven
days; and again he sent forth the dove
out of the ark;
11 And the dove came in to him in
the evening, and, lo, in her mouth was
an olive-leaf pluckt off so Noah knew
that the waters were abated from off the
earth.
12 And he stayed yet other seven days;
and sent forth the dove; which returned
not again unto him any more.
20 And Noah builded an altar unto
the LORD, and took of every clean beast,
and of every clean fowl, and offered
burnt offerings on the altar.
21 And the LORD smelled a sweet
savour; and the LORD said in his heart,
I will not again curse the ground any
366
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
CHAPTER IX.
1 And God blessed Noah and his sons,
and said unto them, Be fruitful and
multiply, and replenish the earth.
2 And the fear of you, and the dread
of you, shall be upon every beast of the
earth, and upon every fowl of the air,
upon all that moveth upon the earth, and
upon all the fishes of the sea; into your
hand are they delivered.
3 Every moving thing that liveth shall
be meat for you; even as the green herb
have I given you all things.
4 But flesh with the life thereof, which
is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat.
5 And surely your blood of your lives
will I require; at the hand of every beast
will I require it, and at the hand of every
man's brother will I require the life of
man.
6 Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by
man shall his blood be shed: for in the
image of God made he man.
7 And you, be ye fruitful, and multiply;
bring forth abundantly in the earth, and
multiply therein.
8 And God spake unto Noah, and to
his sons with him, saying,
9 And I, behold, I establish my cove-
nant with you, and with your seed after
you;
10 And with every living creature that
is with you, of the fowl, of the cattle,
and of every beast of the earth with you;
from all that go out of the ark, to every
beast of the earth.
11 And I will establish my covenant
with you: neither shall all flesh be cut
off any more by the waters of a flood;
neither shall there any more be a flood
to destroy the earth:
12 And God said, This is the token of
the covenant which I make between me
and you, and every living creature that
is with you, for perpetual generations:
13 I do set my bow in the cloud, and
it shall be for a token of a covenant be-
tween me and the earth.
14 And it shall come to pass, when I
bring a cloud over the earth, that the
bow shall be seen in the cloud:
15 And I will remember my covenant,
more for man's sake; for the imagination
of man's heart is evil from his youth;
neither will I again smite any more every
thing living, as I have done.
22 While the earth remaineth, seed-
time and harvest, and cold and heat, and
summer and winter, and day and night,
shall not cease.
CH. VI. 9-IX. 17.
367
which is between me and you and every
living creature of all flesh; and the
waters shall no more become a flood to
destroy all flesh.
16 And the bow shall be in the cloud;
and I will look upon it, that I may re-
member the everlasting covenant between
God and every living creature of all flesh
that is upon the earth.
17 And God said unto Noah, This is
the token of the covenant, which I have
established between me and all flesh that
is upon the earth.
The compiler gets the credit of having introduced into the
combined narrative the words "clean,
and of beasts that
are not clean,” in vii. 8.
In considering the narrative, as thus resolved into two inde-
pendent histories, it will be well first to notice the grounds on
which, in connexion with the variation in the names of God,
the divisionists mainly rely, as requiring, or, at any rate, justi-
fying, such a separation. These are needless repetitions in the
history as it now stands, and discrepancies between some of its
parts.-1. The first instance of alleged needless repetition on
the supposition of the unity of the narrative is in the Elohistic
verses vi. 9-13, as compared with the preceding Jehovistic
verses 5-8. But the repetition here has already been accounted
for by the fact that the latter is the close of one of the principal
subdivisions of the book, bringing down the history to the point
at which the degeneracy of mankind causes God to resolve on
the destruction of the world. The new section beginning with
its proper initial formula at v. 9 naturally, and as on other
occasions, repeats the mention of this degeneracy, and of God's
purpose to destroy all flesh, as an introduction to the history of
the deluge, which would begin too abruptly if its cause was not
thus repeated from the close of the previous passage. All
difficulty arising from the repetition in this case vanishes,
when the division of sections is taken into account.-2. The
next instance of alleged repetition, though with a difference on
which has been grounded the principal charge of discrepancy,
is in the Jehovistic verses 1-5 of ch. vii., as compared with the
368
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
concluding Elohistic verses 18-22 of ch. vi. But there is really
here no repetition, as the two passages relate to wholly different.
periods and circumstances. At the close of ch. vi. directions
are given as to the making of the ark, and the purpose for
which it was to be built is intimated. Noah is told who are to
be the occupants of it, and is bidden to make provision for their
sustenance. Then, in reference to the making of the ark and the
storing of it with the needful provisions, it is added, “Thus did
Noah; according to all that God commanded him, so did he."
Afterwards when the ark is already made, and the time for the
flood is at hand, he receives in the beginning of ch. vii. a new
command, actually to go into the ark, and to take with him the
creatures who were to be preserved. And in reference to this new
command it is again said, "Noah did according to all that Je-
hovah commanded him." There is no needless repetition, but the
customary fulness of narrative.-3. Neither is there any needless
repetition in the succeeding verses as compared with this passage,
vii. 1–5, which might seem to indicate diversity of authorship.
Rather the two passages stand in the closest relation each to the
other. One contains the divine command and the announcement
of the approaching deluge, while the other, in like order, and in
its several successive particulars, describes the fulfilment of the
same. This is shown by Ranke, Untersuchungen, i., p. 176-7,
and it will be well to indicate the particulars as noted by him.
In vii. 1 Noah is bid to go with his family into the ark; this is
done accordingly in v. 7, after v. 6 has mentioned Noah's age
at the time of the flood with manifest reference to the conclusion
of the genealogy in ch. v. Then according to 2, 3 clean and
9
unclean animals are to be taken into the ark, while in v. 8,
the entrance into the ark of clean and unclean animals is
described. In vii. 4 the commencement of the flood is an-
nounced to take place after the seventh day, and in v. 10 we are
the
told that after seven days the waters of the flood were upon
earth. In v. 4 the Lord says he will cause it to rain on the
earth, and in v. 11 it is said that the windows of heaven were
CH. VI. 9–IX. 17.
369
opened. Also in v. 4 the rain was to continue for forty days
and forty nights, and the fulfilment of this is mentioned in
v. 12. Lastly, the concluding sentence of v. 4 intimates that
God will wash away every living substance from off the face of
the ground, the fulfilment of which is told in the same words in
v. 23. Thus, instead of a needless repetition existing in the
verses commencing with vii. 7 of what had previously been
mentioned in 1-5, on which has been grounded the supposition
of different authorship, these two passages stand to one another
in the closest relationship; the earlier has had the most decided
influence in the composition of that which succeeds it, and both
are plainly due to the same writer.-4. The twenty-second and
twenty-third verses of ch. vii., as compared with e. 21, do indeed
contain a repetition of the destruction of all living creatures on
the earth, not necessary, but to be attributed to the disposition for
fulness of narration just mentioned. On the strength of this re-
petition, verses 22, 23 are taken out from their place and handed
over to the Jehovist, to supply a defect in his narrative not other-
wise to be remedied. In such repetitions the Hebrew writers
invariably alter the expressions, using synonymous terms and
manners of speaking. And as in neither of these passages is
there any name of God, the divisionists have it in their power
to select which they please for either writer, and of course they
give to the Jehovist that which seems in its expressions most to
agree with the other passages assigned to him.-5. The last
instance of alleged repetition is in the commencement of ch. ix.,
where God is represented as blessing Noah after the deluge,
as compared with the concluding verses of viii., where after
Noah's sacrifice Jehovah says in his heart, that he will not any
more curse the ground for man's sake. Here also there is no
repetition. The one passage describes a secret purpose in the
mind of God, the other a blessing expressed and a covenant
made, in accordance no doubt with the previously mentioned
purpose, but not a mere repetition of the purpose as existing in
the mind of God.—If now out of all these alleged repetitions
24
370
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
in the separated passages there is only one real case of repeti-
tion, this may be set against the much more extended instance
of repetition left still in the Elohistic narrative, v. 11-16 as
compared with 6-9. The earlier passage, beginning with Noah's
age at the time of the flood, and describing the entrance into the
ark of himself and his family and the creatures to be preserved,
as Elohim had commanded Noah, is repeated with only a little
greater fulness in the later, which again begins with Noah's
age and ends with the same expression, as Elohim had com-
manded him." But for this Elohim, doubtless the entire of one
or other of these passages would be given to the Jehovist. Instead
of this the partitionists have to be content with removing e. 12,
"and the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights,"
at the cost of their giving a needless repetition to the Jehovist
also, who just after says that "the flood was upon the earth
forty days;" while between these two statements they interpose
the concluding words of v. 16, "and Jehovah shut him in,"
just on account of this name, that must not be left to the Elohist,
although the Jehovist says nothing of the going into the ark,
and the clause stands quite out of place and without connexion,
where it is interposed in the separated narrative.
It is now time to turn to the differences and supposed dis-
crepancies.-1. Davidson notices, p. 39, "The one is distin-
guished by an universality of representation. It sets forth not
merely men but beasts; and not only the latter but the earth
itself as corrupt before God. In consequence of this universal
corruption the punishment is that all living creatures shall be
destroyed together with the earth. The other narrative presents
things in a more limited aspect, with reference to their nature
and actual conditions, yet intensively. Hence, while the corruption
is only human, it is total and deep, extending to all the thoughts
of the heart from youth upward." The corruption of the earth
1 Indeed we might treat the portion beginning with v. 11 as a new subsection of
the narrative commencing with the customary repetition, as in other cases.
But even
so there is a fulness of repetition, that has the character of the ambages common in
Eastern tales, as already noticed at p. 189.
2
•
CH. VI. 9-IX. 17.
371
itself here noted is explained in vi. 11 by the succeeding
parallel clause: "The earth was corrupt before Elohim, and
the earth was filled with violence." No corruption of the
material earth was therefore imagined. So again in v. 12, the
earth was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted his way upon
the earth." And as there was thus no notion of attributing
corruption to the natural earth, so, by parity, there was no notion
of attributing moral degeneracy to any but human flesh; while
even in the separated Jehovistic account the punishment falls on
all in whose nostrils was the breath of life. But whatever differ-
ence exists in the two accounts of the degenerate condition of the
world, the earlier account of it does not belong to the history
of the deluge at all, but is in the closing paragraph of the
previous section, which brings down the history to this point.
The next section, containing the history of the flood, resumes
this mention of the degenerate state of the world; and, as that
was the cause of the destruction about to be effected, amplifies
it in the figurative manner which has been taken as an argument
of different authorship in the passage just quoted. Weak as
the argument is in any case, it is wholly deprived of force by
the separation of sections which divides the two passages.-2.
The grand point of difference, regarded as amounting to actual
discrepancy, is in the direction to take into the ark clean
animals by sevens, as contrasted with the previous command
to take pairs of all creatures. Now though Davidson and the
Bishop of Natal scout all reference to the difference of occasion
on which the two commands were given, yet it will be seen that
this difference has weight in the discussion. Davidson says,
1 According to the present Hebrew, the distinction as regards birds is not
expressed, and it might be thought that sevens of each sex of all birds were to be
taken. The LXX, however, express the distinction exactly as in the case of clean
and unclean beasts, and a portion of the text may have therefore been lost from our
present Hebrew copies. At any rate, the limitation of the sevens to clean birds may
be reasonably supplied from that expressed as regards beasts, while it is impossible to
conceive any reason for taking sevens of all birds. The distinction of clean birds is
morcover expressed in viii. 20, where Noah is said to have sacrificed of every clean
beast and of every clean fowl. No doubt the distinction was intended as regards the
number to be taken into the ark also.
372
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
p. 40, "The plain statement cannot be evaded by the arbitrary
assumption of two commands given to Noah at different times."
A writer, whose whole theory is propped up by arbitrary
assumptions, is the last that should object to such an assumption,
if really made. But whether the narrative be separated into
two or not, the commands were given expressly on different
occasions, and there is absolutely no assumption whatever, the
one being being given simultaneously with the command to
build the ark, and the other, when the ark was ready to receive
its occupants, and the deluge about to commence. His reference
to the inconsistency of vii. 8, 9, 15, in which the clean and
unclean go in alike in pairs, male and female, with what he
calls the supposed later account, will be considered presently.
Meanwhile it is to be observed, that the omission of all reference
to the greater numbers of clean animals to be taken than of
unclean, when the preliminary directions were given, may be
naturally accounted for by the exceptional character and small
aggregate of the clean, in proportion to the entire number of all
the animals. It may well have seemed needless to mention this
exceptional case, in stating beforehand the general means by
which life was to be preserved during the deluge. But the
exception which at the preliminary stage of the proceedings was
unimportant, becomes a matter of moment when the creatures
are to be actually taken into the ark; and so without any con-
sciousness of inconsistency the writer might naturally have
given the subsequent directions for immediate action, in their
fuller and more complete form, as in ch. vii. And then as
regards the alleged inconsistency of this latter command with
the subsequent statement in v. 8, 9, it ill becomes Davidson
to insist on the reference to unclean and clean animals in
this latter place, as marking the inconsistency between the two
narratives more distinctly, when he has himself so strongly felt
the inconvenience to his theory of this subsequent mention of
clean and unclean in an Elohistic connexion, that he has been
fain in the most arbitrary manner to assume that it is an
373
CH. VI. 9-IX. 17.
interpolation of his Redactor. This, however, is perfectly
unwarrantable on any just principles of criticism, and the
reference to the clean and unclean animals in v. 8 is plainly
to be regarded as coming à primâ manu, and cannot be
explained but as a reference to the preceding command in v. 2.
If, indeed, it were due to the Redactor, whose ingenuity in
putting together this piece of patchwork, as we are bid 'to regard
it, was greater than that of the authors who have again broken
it
up and re-pieced the original documents, it cannot be believed
that so clever a man, in introducing the distinction for the sake
of harmonising the parts of his compilation, would have left his
work in so imperfect a state, as not in any measure to remove
the difficulty, when a few words more, expressing the difference
of numbers between clean and unclean, would have set all right.
Dismissing the Redactor therefore altogether, and treating the
reference to clean and unclean in e. 8 as certainly à primâ manu,
we may free this Elohistic reference to the Jehovistic command
in . 2 from all seeming inconsistency with it, by connecting
e. 8 with the preceding, instead of the following verse, and
supplying the verb from it. In the subsequent passage, 13-16,
which is a close parallel to this, the fourteenth verse which
answers to v. 8, and like it has no verb, must be construed with
v. 13, while the following verses state the manner of the
entrance of all into the ark as being two and two, male and
female, the latter perhaps explaining the former, or else the two
and two denoting in the repetition what took place in general,
the exceptions having been already sufficiently explained. And
now going back from this passage to 7-9, we there find in
1
?.
1 (13) "In the self-same day entered Noah, and Shem, and Ham, and Japheth
into the ark; (14) they and every beast," etc. So in like manner, v. 7: "And Noah
went in, and his sons, and his sons' wives into the ark, because of the waters of the
flood; (8) of clean beasts, and of beasts that were not clean, and of fowls, and
everything that creepeth upon the earth. (9) Two and two went unto Noah into the
ark, as God had commanded Noah." The LXX. make the connecting of e. 8 with 7
more facile by prefixing kal. The absence of the preposition of in the last clause
of v. 8, also helps to justify taking the expressions, "of clean beasts," etc., sub-
stantively, as in Exod. xvi. 27, DNS, and elsewhere. The Samaritan text
and the LXX. supply of in the last clause. They felt the want of it, in connecting
v. 8 with 9.
374
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
like manner, after the mention of the entrance of Noah and his
family into the ark, v. 8, "Of the clean beast, and of the beast
not clean, of fowl, and everything that creepeth upon the
ground;" which words it is at least possible, and therefore for
the sake of consistency admissible, after the manner of v. 13, to
connect with the previous verse, supplying the ellipsis, "went
into the ark," from it. The proportions in which each entered
would be implied in the concluding words of v. 9, "as God com-
manded Noah," which, though grammatically connected with
v. 9 in its earlier clauses, is evidently intended to apply to all
that was done on the occasion.' Then v. 9, commencing a new
sentence, would represent either the manner in which the
creatures entered, namely by pairs, male and female, whatever
the number of pairs,-which at the same time few will agree
with Davidson in thinking incompatible with the use of the
preposition of, if we connect v. 8 with 9; or else it will
state what took place in regard to all without exception, the
difference in the exceptional cases being implied in the re-
ference to the clean and unclean of the previous verse, itself a
reference to the same distinction in 2. 2. Now it is not said
that the words must be construed in this way; but it is possible
to do so without violence, certainly with less violence than the
entire disruption of the whole narrative.-3. The inconsistency
noticed by the Bishop of Natal in connexion with this subject,
that in the Elohistic account the animals are said to have come
unto Noah, whereas in the Jehovistic he is bid to take them, is
a most puerile objection. He forgets that in the Elohistic com-
mand in ch. vi., when Noah is bid to bring them into the ark,
literally, "to make them go," that is quite as inconsistent with
the "went" of the subsequent Elohistic part of the narrative,
as the "take" of vii. 2, and that the spontaneous "went" of v. 9,
15, 16, is expressly said to have been, "as God commanded
Noah," Noah's active intervention being thus plainly implied.
1 The reference to the Jehovistic command to take sevens is made more clear by
the Samaritan reading of Jehovah in v. 9 as in v. 5, though they have Elohim in v. 1.
CH. VI. L
375
9-IX. 17.
But if the same particular is mentioned a second time with only
a slight variation of expression, it is the Bishop's way to think
that this "seems rather to point to a different writer," as in the
reference to the difference between the "not clean" of v. 2 and
of e. 8, in which a different negative is employed, that in the
latter place being a verbal negative with a suffix, and so making
a sentence, while in the former case there is a simple negative
without any verb.-4. A difference is noted by Davidson in com-
paring the covenant and blessing consequent on the termination
of the deluge, and the restoration of the world as described in
ch. ix., with Noah's sacrifice of clean animals after the flood,
and Jehovah's smelling the sweet savour and being propitiated,
and resolving to curse the ground no more for man's sake, but
to establish the order of nature for ever, whereby he remarks,
CC
a later and more developed subjective religion appears in the
Jehovist." But as in the account of the covenant and blessing
in ch. ix. Noah does not appear except as a listener, there is
no means of judging whether the Elohist had any different
religious conceptions or sentiments than those displayed by the
Jehovist, and reasoning from a negative is unsafe. And may
not the personal communion into which Noah enters with God
by sacrifice, and the highly anthromorphic character in which
God is represented as smelling the sweet savour, and resolving
in his own mind not to destroy the world any more, be them-
selves the cause of the choice of a personal name in preference
to the more abstract and general name in this passage, as would
be natural in the case of a writer who had both names freely in
use, and would spontaneously adopt whichever might almost
unconsciously be felt most suited to the occasion ?-5. A strong
contrast is observed between the regular gradation and exactness
of description in the Elohistic narrative, as compared with the
summary method of the other only touching upon the main
points. This difference is not a ground for justifying the
separation, but itself a result of the separation. A few passages
are picked out and made to stand as a distinct and separate
4
376
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
account, and it is no wonder that they should thus form a sum-
mary, or rather a very defective account, and only touch on the
main particulars. This is an argument against the separation,
instead of a reason to justify it. Very different, however, from
this alleged summary mode of narration attributed to the Je-
hovist is the minute and circumstantial story of the raven and
the dove, which is given to the Jehovist for no other reason,
but that it makes mention of intervals 'of forty and of seven
days, which it is assumed are the special property of the Je-
hovist. It will be seen that in the subsequent parts of the
book, the Elohist, who is here represented as using a less sum-
mary mode of narration than the Jehovist, becomes in the
greatest possible degree brief and summary in his narration.
The fulness of the early Elohistic narrative is highly inconsistent
with the brevity of the later parts, as will hereafter be more
particularly noticed.-6. The same remark applies to the last
point of difference, namely the diversity in the notation of the
times specified in each. In the undivided account the several
times noted only mark the successive epochs in the entire period
occupied by the events described. First, in vii. 4 notice is given
of the approaching event seven days before, and a command to
enter the ark is given, which is said to have been obeyed. The
seven days may well have been consumed in the steps needful
for Noah's final entrance, and on the expiration of that interval,
v. 10, 11, 13, his entrance finally took place, and the flood
began, the month and day of the month and year of Noah's life
being specified. Then in 12, 17 the rain continues forty days
and forty nights, and the waters increase for the same length of
time. Finally, v. 24, the waters prevail for an hundred and
fifty days. At the end of that period, however, the assuaging
of the waters, which had been going on in the interval, was so
far accomplished that the ark rested on the summit of Mount
Ararat on the seventeenth day of the seventh month, viii. 3, 4.
They still decrease till the tops of the mountains are seen on the
first of the tenth month, v. 5, forty days after which, v. 6, Noah
CH. VI. 9-IX. 17.
377
sends forth the raven and the dove, v. 8, and the dove again
after seven days, and a third time after another seven days,
v. 10, 11. Then on the first day of the first month in the next
year the ground is dried, that is the surface of the earth,¹ and
the earth itself in the second month, on the seven and twentieth
day, v. 13, 14. In all this there is no inconsistency or uncer-
tainty as to the order of the intervals; all is regular and orderly
in its succession. The alleged unnatural proportion between
the intervals of rain and of subsidence does not concern the
present inquiry, which is not to ascertain what would be natural
or unnatural in a case of the kind, which, in our ignorance
of the circumstances in general, we could not determine; but
whether the narrative is one or a combination of two. When,
however, all these sevens and forties have arbitrarily been
separated and assigned to the Jehovist, it is then easy to say
that in his narrative "periods of time are designated by two
numbers alone-seven and forty." And let it be observed, that
with the exception of the first mentioned seven days before the
flood, all the intervals of seven and forty are picked out of
an Elohistic context. Even thus, however, there exists no dis-
crepancy, as the Jehovistic narrative still assigns no definite
interval for the subsidence after the forty days rain until the
ark rested on Ararat, the mention of which is in the most arbi-
trary manner picked out of the Elohistic context in which it
stands. Nor is it told how long Noah remained in the ark after
the dove failed to return, while the ground was becoming
1 The Bishop of Natal in pointing out the alleged absurdities of the narrative,
represents Noah as taking off the covering of the ark finally at this time, and
remaining uncovered during the interval until the earth was dried, a period of one
month and twenty-seven days. No such thing is asserted in the narrative. The
cover is removed to survey the state of the ground, but it is not said the ark was left
uncovered. One almost feels shame in noticing such puerile objections.
2 Davidson's remark on the use of the word 171, prevailed, in vii. 24, as
implying that no subsidence of the waters took place in the interval from the termina-
tion of the forty days rain till the end of the hundred and fifty days, is perfectly un-
warrantable. It is absurd to suppose that it does not admit of the idea of any sub-
sidence in v. 24, because it is used in e. 19, after 171, increased, in v. 18. The
increase first caused the waters greatly to prevail, and then that prevalence was such
as to continue through a considerable period of subsidence.
378
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
sufficiently dry. But as the Jehovist must know no other
numbers than seven and forty, it is assumed that the indefinite
intervals could not be such as to make the two accounts
coincide.
It now remains to ask what pretensions the Jehovistic
narrative has to stand by itself as an independent history of the
flood?-1. First there is the total absence in it of any directions for
the making of the ark, or of any reference to it, or to the nature
of the intended destruction, until Noah is bid to go into, not an
ark, but the ark, as if already made according to previous instruc-
tions. Summary as is this supposed writer's mode of narration
here, it is not likely he would have omitted so important a matter,
or so abruptly spoken of the ark at the time of the flood, without
any previous mention of it. Even if the article in this construc-
tion might be due to the preposition, yet still the abruptness
would be highly improbable, nothing having been said to indicate
the existence of such a structure in readiness for the occasion seven
days before its arrival. It is not a ship of ordinary dimensions,
that might be supposed available for any occasion, but a vessel of
such extraordinary nature, that the first mention of it, whether as
the ark without any previous notice of its construction, or an ark,
as if such a vessel were easily to be had at any moment, would
be alike inadmissible. Davidson is sensible of this difficulty, but
merely says the construction is presupposed. The Bishop of
Natal, however, without giving his adherence absolutely to a
separate Jehovistic history, provides a supply of the defect by
dividing the directions about making the ark, giving the Elohist
vi. 14, and the Jehovist 15, 16, with the interpolation of " And
Jehovah said to Noah make thee an ark." Elsewhere he
suggests that the omission is due to the circumstance that the
writer referred to the ark as mentioned already in the Elohistic
account, or that he spoke of it as the well-known ark in the
1 By this arbitrary arrangement the reference in the alleged Jehovistic viii. 6 of
"the window in the ark which he had made," to the Elohistic account of the con-
struction of the ark in vi. 15, 16, which is inconvenient to the theory, is avoided.
CH. VI. 9-IX. 17.
379
popular legend. This latter suggestion would be admissible if
he was only making a passing allusion to the subject of the
deluge, but not in a detailed history of that event, which he
would scarcely have thought it necessary to write at all, if he
had seen no occasion to mention one of the principal circum-
stances of the transaction. As regards the former suggestion,
it is only consistent with the supposition of simple interpolation,
rather than of an independent narrative, a supposition to
be adverted to hereafter.-2. Next, the clause, "and Jehovah
shut him in," borrowed from v. 16, where, notwithstanding its
Elohistic context, it is in a good and close connexion with what
precedes, stands in the Jehovistic narrative in so abrupt and un-
connected a position, that Bishop Colenso, on the supposition of
an independent Jehovistic narrative, feels it necessary to inter-
polate before it the words, "And Noah and all his house went
into the ark."-3. Then the Jehovistic account of the destruction
of all in whose nostrils was breath of life, 22, 23, comes in very
abruptly, and without the connecting copulative, with which in
every other instance the mention of any matter not otherwise
connected, or in immediate sequence with what precedes, is
introduced. Here, too, the Bishop supplies a clause to remedy
the defect.-4. Again, while this Jehovistic account is particular
in mentioning all the other intervals, -the seven days' notice, the
forty days' rain and prevalence of the flood, the forty days' delay
after the ark grounded before the raven and the dove were sent
out, and the seven days' intervals in sending the dove out again,
—it makes no mention of the period of the subsidence after the
staying of the waters until the ark took the ground. This is a
serious omission, when the other intervals are mentioned with
such minuteness.-5. Finally there is no mention of the exit
from the ark. After the dove has finally departed, nothing
more is told than that Noah builded an altar. This too, in an
account so minute in the particulars it does mention, including
especially the shutting of them into the ark, is a grave omission,
wholly incompatible with the supposition of an independent
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
380
narrative, to sustain which the Bishop makes another needful
interpolation.
II. It is plain, therefore, that the Jehovistic parts, separated
from the rest of the history, cannot stand alone as an indepen-
dent narrative. As a series of Jehovistic interpolations sup-
plementing the Elohistic narrative, the discussion of them may
be confined to the passages which are specially characterised by
the name Jehovah, as there is no reason whatever why other
parts, such as the sentences picked out to fill up the Jehovistic
account as an independent narrative, might not just as well have
belonged to the Elohistic part. If the variation of the names
can be reasonably accounted for, as offering themselves quite
naturally to a writer using both, there is nothing to justify the
resort to so violent an hypothesis as that of interpolation, in
respect to these Jehovistic sentences.
The narrative of the deluge viewed in its integrity and on the
positive side, though complete and closely connected in all its
parts, yet naturally resolves itself into three lesser sections, which
have a certain completeness in themselves.-1. The prefatory
part, and matter preparatory to the deluge itself, forming the
introduction, and extending from vi. 9 to the end of the chapter.
2. The account of the deluge itself, comprised in chapters vii.
and viii., with Noah's sacrifice on emerging from the ark.-3.
The blessing of Noah after the flood, the grant of flesh for food
without the blood, and the covenant not again to destroy all
flesh with the waters of a flood. These may be considered
separately.
1. The Introduction, as usual at the commencement of one
of the larger sections or Toledoth, commences with a recapitula-
tion of matters already indicated at the close of the previous
portion, such as the righteous character of Noah, the names of
his sons, the prevalent wickedness, and the determination on
God's part to destroy the ungodly world.
The brief mention of Noah's character in vi. 8, "Noah found
grace in the eyes of Jehovah," is here given in the fuller state-
381
CH. VI. 9−IX. 17.
ment that "Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations,
and Noah walked with God." The generations here spoken of,
like "this generation" in vii. 1, are the generations with which,
some passing away and others coming on, Noah was contempo-
rary in his lifetime. Not in the ways of these ungodly gene-
This
rations did Noah walk, but Noah walked with God.
expression, as before in the case of Enoch, is used to denote
the habitual godliness of Noah's life, and for this purpose the
generic Elohim, and not the personal Jehovah, is the proper
expression. "But the earth was corrupt before God." If the
Elohim here might have been Jehovah, as in . S, so far as the
words themselves are concerned, it comes naturally here in
marking the contrast between Noah's godliness and the un-
godliness of the rest of the world, and follows the Elohim of
v. 9 as a matter of course, the one walked with Elohim, the
others were corrupt before Elohim. And as here the earth is
corrupt before the face of Elohim, so in sequence with this, in
the next verse Elohim looks upon the earth and sees its cor-
ruption; and, v. 13, Elohim announces to Noah that the end
of all flesh is come. And here the writer does not put into
the mouth of God the word used in the previous part to denote
the impending destruction, because of any peculiarity of style
and vocabulary distinguishing him from the author of the pre-
vious part, but simply from that disposition to play on sounds
and double senses of words so common in all parts of this book.
The earth was corrupted, , and all flesh had corrupted,
nnn, his way, and now God will corrupt them, D.
This is the reason why the word, and not, is here
used, and not any predilection for one in preference to the other;
and it is because the words here used, "to corrupt all flesh," and
the covenant, which God promises to make with Noah after the
deluge, are purposely repeated and referred to in ch. ix., that
this verb re-appears there concurrently with the re-appearance
of Elohim. This name having thus continued in use from the
first mention of Noah's godly walk is resumed quite as a matter
382
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
of course at the close of the introduction, where it is said, "And
Noah did according to all that God commanded him, so did
he,”—this latter clause, as it were, winding up and formally
concluding the introductory and preparatory matter.
2. And now the writer having come to a pause, and a decided
break having been made in the continuity of his thoughts, his
mind was free to revert to any other name he had previously
used, according as occasion might suggest it to his remembrance.
That there was a cause for the suggestion of the name Jehovah,
at the commencement of this second portion of the narrative,
will shortly appear. But first let the facts be observed. This
passage, from the commencement of ch. vii. to the end of ch. viii.,
is Jehovistic and Elohistic, two of the instances in which Elohim
is employed being merely repetitions of the statement that Noah
had acted in accordance with the Divine command, as Elohim
had commanded him, it being a special object with the writer to
insist on the Divine arrangement in this whole matter, and on the
implicit observance of the Divine directions by Noah. A third
instance of the use of Elohim is in the commencement of ch.
viii., where, after the flood had reached its height, the Divine
superintendence of the entire matter is again brought before
us, and the Divine providence in caring for Noah,-God re-
members Noah, and God makes a wind to pass over the waters
and cause their abatement. And finally, at the moment when
all is ready for the exit from the ark, Noah, who has acted all
through in obedience to Divine command, does not venture out
until he receives the like authority; Elohim bids him go out.
All this might have been freely said by one familiar with the
use of both names, Elohim being naturally used to express the
Divine authority and superintendence under which all took place.
On the other hand, at the outset, it is Jehovah that gives the
command to Noah to go into the ark, and in giving this an addi-
tion is made to the general direction previously given, as to the
numbers to be taken into the ark of the several kinds of animals.
In the previous directions the numbers to be taken generally
383
CH. VI. 9-IX. 17.
were only mentioned. Now a special and exceptional case
is distinguished; clean animals are to be taken by sevens, male
and female. If this special and exceptional case had not been
made in connexion with the use of Jehovah, no one of the
critics who now so strongly insist on it as a token of different
authorship, would ever have seen any difficulty in it; nothing
would have seemed more natural than that what was special
and exceptional in the arrangement should have been reserved
for the final directions, when the time for acting should arrive.
But it was probably this very specialty that suggested the use
of Jehovah here, as will be presently observed. This command
of Jehovah is accompanied by an intimation that in seven days
it should commence to rain for forty days and forty nights,
and every living substance should be washed away, not wiped
out or blotted as some would render, from the face of the earth;
the same significant figure being resumed which before was
used in the early part of ch. vi., and now remaining in use
through this part of the narrative. The paragraph ends by
saying that Noah did according as Jehovah had commanded
him. The next paragraph proceeds to describe the fulfilment
of these commands, and the occurrence of the threatened deluge.
In this there is no doubt much iteration, and the ambages of
ancient narration are fully exemplified both in this paragraph,
and, indeed, through the entire narrative. But no supposition
of several authorship, and of combined parts of different histories,
has succeeded in explaining all these repetitions. The parts of
the resolved narrative, either one or both, will still present the
same phenomenon; iteration will still be the characteristic of
the story. This second paragraph begins with setting forth
Noah's age, and then tells how he and his family, and all kinds
of animals, went into the ark, and how these latter went in two
and two, male and female, of clean and unclean, as God com-
manded Noah. Now this mention of clean and unclean, after
the large and comprehensive directions given in ch. vi., would
have no meaning whatever, except in reference to the distinction
384
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
made in the first paragraph of the present chapter; and the
mention of their going as God commanded, so soon after the
statement that Noah did as Jehovah had commanded, is to be
regarded as specially referring to this distinction. The clean
and unclean beasts went in by pairs, male and female, as God had
commanded, that is, with the distinction of numbers just before
commanded by Jehovah. On the seventh day the waters were upon
the earth. Noah's age is again mentioned, not now, however, as
before, for the purpose of telling how old he was, but of noting
the year, to which the month and the day of the month are
added, the manner in which the flood was produced is told, and
the duration of the rain for forty days and forty nights as pre-
dicted is set forth. Judging from 7, 10, it would appear that
the entrance into the ark was taking place during the seven
days interval; at least, this is the natural supposition, the rain
having begun on the seventh day. Hence it would seem that
the Versions are inaccurate in rendering v. 13 as if it implied.
that it was on the same day that the flood began they all went
in, in contradiction, as the Bishop of Natal would have us sup-
pose, to the command to go into the ark in the so-called Jeho-
vistic part, v. 1–6, according to which they were to go in seven
days before. Part v. Crit. Anal. p. 26. Rather we should say,
"On that self-same day they had all gone into the ark." The
future with the conversive vau, that carries on the sequence of
the events, is here interrupted; now it is the past tense used
absolutely, and it should be rendered as a pluperfect. And then
it is added again, that they went in two and two of all flesh
wherein was breath of life; the varieties and diversities of
kind and nature being amply insisted on, with the renewed
assertion that they that went in went male and female, accord-
ing to the Divine command. "And Jehovah closed upon him."
The Divine source of the command by which Noah acted is
expressed generally; the personal act by which the ark was
shut, so anthropomorphic in its character, is ascribed to the
personal Jehovah, by whose command, in v. 1, Noah went into
mila
CH. VI. 9-IX. 17.
385
the ark.¹ Besides, the last clause without Jehovah, iya ip,
would close the paragraph so abruptly, and form so short a
parallel, compared with that preceding, as naturally to suggest
its extension by adding the subject of the verb. And then the
proximity of Elohim at the end of the previous clause, and the
tendency to vary the expressions in successive clauses, would be
apt to occasion, if not require, the use of a different name.
2
The next paragraph, which extends to the end of this chapter,
describes the progress and advance of the flood, and the destruc-
tion occasioned by it. It has no name of God in it, but is
characterised by the same iteration as the other parts.
But
this is not wholly without some effect in making the story more
full. The increase of the waters in v. 17 lifts the ark from the
ground, and sets it afloat. In 18 they prevail sufficiently to
enable it to drift about upon the face of the waters without
interruption; and in 19, 20 they prevail so exceedingly as to
rise above the hills fifteen cubits, and the mountains are covered.
There is plainly a climax here, that sort of gradation which
Ranke has remarked in vii. 1-4 and 6 f., and which will be
presently noticed at full length, by which the successive re-
petitions ever add something as they proceed. Nor would
this tendency to undue repetition be avoided by removing
v. 17, as if it were part of a different narrative; the succeeding
verses would still exhibit the same character, while the other
narrative, to which this would be added, would then become
liable to the same objection, e. 12 having already mentioned
the forty days' duration of the rain. Nor is the repetition in
verses 21-23 wholly unmeaning. First, with ample enumera-
tion of various kinds, we are told that all creatures on the
face of the earth in whose nostrils was breath of life died.
Then we are told, with like enumeration of kinds, that every
1 Such close juxtaposition of the two names occurs at all periods of the sacred
history, as in the New Test. Acts xii. 23, "The angel of the Lord smote him,
because he gave not God the glory."
2 The last clause would also desiderate a new subject, in order to break the depend-
ence on the conjunction prefixed to the preceding clause.
25
386
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
living substance was washed away, the old word reappearing;
but here the fulness of the enumeration is to give greater sig-
nificance to the exception,-only Noah and they that were with
him remained.
The next paragraph commences with the mention of God's
care for Noah, and his interposition to abate the waters. It
describes the retreat of the flood with an ebbing and flowing
motion, specifies the time when an abatement was established,
with the day of the month, coinciding with the completion of one
hundred and fifty days, when the ark rested on the mountains
of Ararat, describes a further decrease to the tenth month, when
the tops of the mountains are seen, and specifies a further
interval of forty days, at which time Noah sends forth a raven
and a dove. After another fortnight the dove returns no
more, and at the end of another month and one week, which
brings us to the first day of the first month, the face of the
ground is dry, that is the surface. And at the seven and
twentieth day of the second month the earth is sufficiently
hardened to admit of the inmates of the ark going out of it.
In all this there is a regular gradation of dates and times, in
which the forty days before the raven and the dove were sent
out fill their proper and natural place, and afford no pretext for
removing that story from the position which it occupies as part
of the original text. This paragraph concludes with the Divine
command to go forth from the ark and to multiply upon the
earth;
and Noah and all that were with him went forth out
of the ark.
The concluding paragraph represents Noah as building an
altar to Jehovah, and offering on it of every clean beast and
every clean fowl. And Jehovah smells the savour, and Jehovah
resolves in his own heart that he will not any more curse the
ground for man's sake, because the imagination of man's heart
is evil from his youth up; nor will he any more smite every
living thing, or interrupt the regular order of times and seasons.
The connexion between this concluding paragraph and that with
CH. VI. 9-IX. 17.
387
which the more immediate story of the deluge commences is
clear from the use made here of the clean animals, thus evidently
indicating one purpose with which it was directed that a larger
number of these should be taken into the ark. The Jehovistic
character of both passages is now explained, in so far as it might
have seemed of moment to one who had just revived, or for the
first time introduced, or given new significance to, this as the
proper name of the God of Israel, and was desirous of
establishing the special use of this name in all acts of
worship, to represent the first solemn sacrificial act which
took place after the flood, as the first oblations after the
creation, to have been offered to Jehovah. By thus carrying
back the name to the earliest times, and interchanging it
with Elohim, Jehovah would appear not as the mere national
God of Israel, but as God alone. When Jehovah says in
his heart that he will not curse the ground again for man's
sake, there appears in these latter words a reference to
v. 29, where Lamech says on the birth of Noah, "This same
shall comfort us concerning our work and toil of our hands,
because of the ground which Jehovah hath cursed." The
only way, in which this anticipation of Lamech can be under-
stood to have been fulfilled, is in obtaining this promise that
God will curse the ground no more for man's sake. Already
it has been twice cursed; first at the fall, and then at the deluge.
Now God will no more curse the ground for man's sake. Thus
there is here a reference to v. 29, as in that verse to iii. 17, or
rather there is here a reference to both. And this of itself
would even in an Elohistic connexion have determined the use of
Jehovah, at least in v. 21, as the reference in iii. 17 did in v. 29.
And it is remarkable that here also, as in v. 29, the LXX. make
the reference more distinct by their use of kúpios ó Beòs in v. 21.
It is also remarkable that the LXX., both here and in iii. 17, must
!
have read forin, translating here dià rà epya, and there
èv Toîs epyois, supposing the word to be some cognate of 7.
3. The concluding part of the narrative of the deluge extends
388
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
from ix. 1 to 17. It is exclusively Elohistic. This character
at the commencement is attributable to the manifest reference
in the blessing now pronounced on Noah, v. 1-4, to Gen. i.
27-29. Partly in substance, partly in the very words, we have
a repetition of the original blessing on the human race, with
the addition of the expressed grant of flesh for meat, here sub-
joined for reasons already noticed. While the Elohim in v. 1
is thus explained, as copied from i. 28, that which occurs in v. 6
is plainly copied from i. 27.¹ But the restriction from the use
of blood, and the sentence on those that should shed man's
blood, indicate a different reference. The former may have had
some anticipatory application to the Levitical prohibition of the
use of blood, but it stands here quite distinct, as if intended to
create a dislike from the commencement to the needless shedding
of blood, and as a restraint on the more animal part of man's
nature, with a special view to the hindrance of homicide. And
then the sentence on those that shed man's blood seems evidently
intended to hinder the relaxation of punishment, which was
granted in the case of Cain, from being drawn into an encourage-
ment of the hope of impunity in other cases. This indicates a
reference to the Jehovistic chapter iv., which is not insignificant
in this discussion, as according to the hypothesis of the partition-
ists the Elohist, at any rate, had not seen the Jehovistic parts.
The requiring the blood of their lives, the life of every man at
the hand of his brother, also seems clearly to allude to Jehovah's
demand, "Where is thy brother ?" to Cain's reply, "Am I my
brother's keeper?" and to Jehovah's words in return, "What
hast thou done? the voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me
from the ground."
1 Gen. i. 28, 29, "And Elohim blessed them, and Elohim said unto them, Be fruitful
and multiply and replenish the earth, and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish
of the sea and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon
the earth;" ix. 1, "And Elohim blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them,
Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth, and the fear of you and the dread
of you shall be upon every living thing of the ground, and upon all the fowl of the air,
and upon all the fishes of the sea." The words in italics are the same in both. Gen.
i. 27," And Elohim created man in his own image, in likeness of Elohim created he
him;" ix. 6, "For in likeness of Elohim made he man.
"
CH. VI. 9-IX. 17.
389
The use of Elohim in the preceding part of this chapter being
simply copied from Gen. i., it seems partly due in the sequel to
the continuity of thought in the writer's mind; partly also
perhaps to the circumstance that the covenant may have been
contrasted in the writer's mind, as one between God and all
flesh, with the special covenant between Jehovah and Abra-
ham and his seed. The general term expressing the Deity
may therefore have more naturally presented itself to his
mind, than the special and proper name, which was associated
in his mind with the covenants with Israel. At the same time
this is not wholly to be severed from the purpose of Jehovah
expressed at the close of the last chapter. There Jehovah
resolves in his own mind; here in furtherance of that resolution
God makes a covenant with all flesh. The difference between
a secret purpose and a declared promise and solemn covenant is
sufficient to remove any objection that might be raised against
an alleged needless repetition, while the seeming repetition
itself stands rather as the complement of the previously men-
tioned design, and gives unity to the whole.
III. Throughout the entire of this subsection, from vi. 9 to
ix. 17, the LXX. have never employed kúptos by itself, but always
kúpios ó leòs, to represent the Jehovah of the Hebrew, except in
viii. 29. And not only do they put these two words together,
where Jehovah alone occurs in the Hebrew, but also in many places
where the Hebrew has Elohim. Thus in vi. 12, 13 it is kúpιos &
Ocòs that sees the earth to be corrupt, and gives Noah the
directions about making the ark; and in v. 22 it is as kúpɩos
ó feòs commanded that Noah is said to have acted. In viii. 15
it is kúpios ó leòs that bids him quit the ark, and in ix. 12 that
points to the bow as the token of the covenant, Elohim being
found in all these places in the existing Hebrew copies.
Thus as far as the LXX. may be regarded as representing
exactly the state of the Hebrew copies used by them, the dif-
ference of names in the Elohistic command to take pairs of all
animals, and the Jehovistic to take sevens of clean beasts and
390
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
birds, on which so much stress is laid by the partitionists,
wholly vanishes, and the purely Elohistic character of the other
Elohistic parts is destroyed. On the other hand, the Samaritan
Pentateuch has Elohim in vii. 1, where the Hebrew has Jehovah,
and Jehovah in v. 9, where the Hebrew has Elohim. These read-
ings greatly invalidate any hypothesis built exclusively on the
present Hebrew readings, a circumstance which the divisionists
do not allow in the slightest degree to check the confidence with
which they maintain their theories. Apart, however, from the
uncertainty that exists as to the original readings, and the Hebrew
text being admitted in its present state, not only have the
grounds, on which, in addition to the variation of the names of
God, the separation has been maintained, been found quite
inadequate to sustain the conclusions based on them, but also it
has been shown that the variation of the names of God through
this entire section may be explained by simple and natural
considerations, without the need of resorting to the violent pro-
ceeding of resolving the whole into distinct and independent
narratives, or the equally violent excision from the earlier
history of alleged interpolations.
-
Before we leave this section, there is, lastly, to be noted a
characteristic peculiarity which runs through a large portion
of it, and tends to unite the whole as the work of one writer.
This is a tendency, as the narrative proceeds, to render the par-
ticulars already mentioned more definite when again referred to,
to add fresh circumstances, and to give a greater fulness to the
several particulars.¹ Thus in vi. 11 the earth is corrupt and
filled with violence; in v. 12 the same is repeated with the
addition that all flesh had corrupted his way. In v. 13 God
says he will destroy all flesh with the earth, but does not say in
what manner; in v. 17, after desiring the ark to be built, he
1 Ranke, Untersuchungen i., p. 176, notices this as an unmistakeable characteristic
of vii. 1-4, and that not confined to the single particular of rendering the direction
respecting the animals to be taken into the ark more definite and exact than that pre-
viously given in ch. vi. The force of the observation is greatly strengthened, when
it is remarked that this characteristic pervades a much larger part of the narrative.
CH. VI. 9–IX. 17.
391
tells that he will destroy all flesh by the waters of a flood. In
19, 20 Noah is bid to take of all living things two of every sort;
in vii. 2, 3 this command is repeated with the additional direc-
tion to take of clean animals by sevens. The announcement of
the deluge in vi. 17 is repeated in vii. 4, with the addition
of the rain by which it should be caused, the time when it
should commence, and the period during which the rain should
continue. In vii. 6 Noah is said to have been six hundred
years old when the flood commenced, while in v. 11 this date is
rendered more exact by the addition of the second month and
the seventeenth day of the month. In vii. 4 it is by rain the
flood is to be caused; in v. 11, not only are the windows of
heaven opened, but the fountains of the great deep are also
broken up. In 7-9 Noah and his family and the various animals
go into the ark; in 13-16 this is repeated with the additional
particular that the Lord shut them in. The statement of v. 12,
that the rain continued forty days and forty nights, is advanced
in v. 17 to a flood which was forty days upon earth, with the
increase of the waters and the floating of the ark. The next
verse adds a further increase and prevalence of the waters, and
the drifting about of the ark. Then in v. 19 to this prevalence
of the waters is added the covering of the hills, and in . 20 the
height to which the waters prevailed and the covering of the
mountains, while v. 24 adds the continued prevalence of
the waters for one hundred and fifty days. In 21, 22 is
described the destruction of all flesh; this is immediately
repeated in 23 with the limitation rendering it more exact,
that Noah and they that were with him in the ark remained
alive. This characteristic, which is thus observable up to the
crisis of the narrative, is not so largely presented by the subse-
quent part. It was more appropriate to the approach of a
momentous event, the indications and anticipations of which
become more distinct as it draws near, and more adapted to the
description of the increasing and overflowing rise, than to
the ebb and recess. The mind of the writer partakes in the
392
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
reaction, and the tide of thoughts as of the waters is abated
The prevalence, however, of the characteristic through so large
a portion of the narrative, through all indeed in which it would
be fitting, is a strong evidence of the unity of the authorship,
as far at any rate as that portion extends, while its absence
where it would not be so appropriate, is no argument against
the unity of the sequel either in itself or with the preceding
part. Moreover the same peculiarity presents itself again in
this very sequel in regard to one important particular, and so
connects its Jehovistic and Elohistic parts. The purpose not
again to curse the ground, or to smite all flesh, which is as yet
only a secret resolution in the Jehovistic close of ch. viii., is
advanced to a solemn covenant, with its visible token, in the
Elohistic ch. ix., this Elohistic part being thus connected, as the
later, with the Jehovistic, which according to the theory should
have been subsequent to it.
The lengthened examination to which this section has been
subjected, was necessary on account of the great stress which
has been laid on the phenomena presented by it, as the main
support of the modern theories. The way is now clear for a
more confident advance to the subsequent parts of the history.
§. 2. CH. ix. 18-29. SUBSEQUENT HISTORY OF NOAH AND HIS
FAMILY. JEHOVISTIC AND ELOHISTIC.
THIS second subsection of the larger section headed, "The
generations of Noah," is marked off not only by its difference of
subject matter, but also by the not unusual prefatory recapitu-
lation of the names of those that came forth out of the ark. It
brings the history down to Noah's death, or at least supplies the
only particulars known respecting him after the flood. It is
assigned by the Bishop of Natal to the Jehovist, as also by
Kuenen with the exception of verses 28, 29, but by the critics
whom Dr. Davidson represents to the so-called Redactor. It
offers, however, no difficulty on the hypothesis of an original
393
CH. IX. 18-29.
writer who had both names in use, and employed them through-
out the entire book as circumstances might suggest, or the
occasion require one or the other to be adopted. In this
passage Jehovah appears as a proper name, which occupies its
natural place here as the subject of an assumptive proposition,
the predicate of which is the general term Elohim. Plainly the
expression is intended to intimate, no doubt with special
reference to the chosen race, that the worship of Jehovah should
prevail amongst the descendants of Shem, as distinguished from
the other sons of Noah. Jehovah, as such, was never the God
of Japheth's descendants, and the expression would have been
as manifestly improper if applied to him, as it is in its proper
place applied to Shem. It has its counterpart in xxiv. 27,
"Blessed be Jehovah, Elohim of my master Abraham ;" and the
phrase, Jehovah, Elohim of heaven, Elohim of Abraham, or
Elohim of Isaac, is of frequent occurrence. If it was the writer's
design to intimate that Shem should in particular be a worship-
per of Jehovah, how could he have more naturally expressed
his meaning, than by saying that Jehovah should be Shem's
Elohim? And this is what he has done, only that, in conse-
quence of the poetical character of the passage, the prediction
assumes the indirect and assumptive form in which it appears.
On the other hand, the expression, "Blessed be Elohim of Shem,"
would give no special blessing, or rather no blessing at all to
Shem. For while a promise of blessing from Elohim is given
to Japheth, and that one which would seem to imply an en-
croachment on the habitations of Shem's descendants,¹ Shem has
no promise, and the omission of Jehovah leaves him in no
special relation to Elohim. The name Jehovah therefore stands
-
1
That this is the true meaning, and not that Elohim should dwell in the tents
of Shem, is admitted by Hengstenberg in his Christologie, though his tendencies
would be in favour of the Messianic import, which the other interpretation would bear
for Christian readers. As not unfrequently happens, however, he grounds a right
conclusion on an insufficient reason, relying here on the change from Jehovah in the
previous verse, as applied in reference to Shem, to the simple Elohim used in regard
to Japheth, and maintaining that the descent to Elohim, as dwelling in the tents of
Shem, from the higher name Jehovah previously used would be inconsistent. A
stronger reason not noticed by him is the poetic parallelism, in accordance with
394
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
quite naturally in this place, and its introduction by an inter-
polator is not to be thought of. The name indeed must be
understood as used to represent some earlier proper name of
God, such as might have been in use in the days of Noah, as
may be the case with many other proper names. Japheth,
having its representative in the Greek Japetus, is probably a
name anterior in its origin to the present Hebrew; and the
paronomasia between this name and the verb rendered "shall
enlarge," (, yapht,) on which the Bishop of Natal animad-
verts, as implying a Hebrew root for the name, and the use of
Hebrew by Noah (p. 44, 45), may have come quite accidentally
to the writer; or else for the sake of it, he may have chosen
this verb in preference to some other which would have equally
expressed the intended meaning. And this is the more likely
as the final syllable has been elided, apparently with the design
of making the paronomasia more marked.¹
The Bishop also objects to the sentence pronounced on
Canaan, "A servant of servants shall he be," as an allusion
to the signification of the name as derived from y, to humble
or make low, as if the name was given with respect to this pre-
dicted degradation, whereas in reality, he says, it describes the
low land on the sea coast of Palestine occupied by the Canaan-
ites. Whatever may be the signification of this name, the
writer of the prediction does not appear to have made any
allusion to it whatever. The play on could have been as
which the latter clause is plainly an explanatory repetition of the meaning conveyed
by the former :—
"Elohim shall enlarge Japheth,
And he shall dwell in the tents of Shem."
The Rabbis indeed have built on the relation between and the non-Biblical
term Shekinah, denoting the presence of God in the Holy of Holies, a cabbalism
undeserving of notice; as also is the interpretation, "tents of renown," instead of
"tents of Shem."
Though in p. 44 the Bishop suggests that the play on the name in connexion
with the verb implies a belief in the derivation, bidding the reader "
comp. the J.
derivations of names in ii. 7, 23, iii. 20, iv. 16, 25, v. 29," yet in p. 41 he admits
that the writer does not profess to derive the name from the verb. "The Jehovist in
in ix. 27 connects the name Japheth with П, pathah, 'enlarge,' though he does
not profess to derive it from this word; we have seen other instances already where he
has evidently referred a name to what is not its true root." Thus, though the writer
has abstained from the offence in this instance he gets no credit for his abstinence.
CH. X.
395
easily produced as that on , if there had existed any such
reference as the Bishop imagines, and would not have been
overlooked had it been made.¹ As usual in such cases, the most
objectionable view is that for which the Bishop holds the writer
responsible, however uncertain it may be that he ever intended
what is made the ground of objection. The writer here should
not, at any rate, be held accountable for that which he has not
expressed, and of which he has not given the slightest evidence
that it was in his thoughts.
The LXX. coincide with the Hebrew, as regards the use of
the names of God, in this concluding subsection of “The gene-
rations of Noah."
V. THE GENERATIONS OF THE SONS OF NOAH.
§. 1. CH. X. THE DESCENDANTS OF NOAH AFTER THEIR NATIONS
AND LANGUAGES. JEHOVISTIC.
THIS section is distinct and complete in itself, commencing
with the usual initial formula, and extending to a like formula
introducing the succeeding section; and it comprises the des-
cendants of Noah, from an ethnographic point of view, with an
account of their dispersion after the flood.
The first subsection is Jehovistic, the name Jehovah being
used in describing the prowess of Nimrod, as a mighty hunter
before Jehovah, in two instances, in one of which it is represented
by the LXX. by κύριος ὁ θεὸς, in the other by κύριος alone,
Hengstenberg gives to the expression, "before Jehovah," in this
passage a moral signification, as if it denoted that Nimrod's
violence and rapacity were offences against God; and he asserts
that never on any occasion is the name of God, and particularly
of Jehovah, used merely to express a strong superlative.
The
יַפְךְ לְיֶפֶת like לָנוּעַ כְּנָעַן we might as easily hare had אָרוּר כְּנָעַן A Instead of
>
?
2 He endeavours to set aside this use of the name Jehovah in a hyperbolical
manner of speaking in Gen. xiii. 10, "As a garden of Jehovah, as the land of Egypt,
as thou comest unto Zoar." He alleges that the indefinite rendering, “as a garden
of Jehovah," is grammatically false. This is too strongly asserted, for Jehovah
396
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
repetition of the expression here, as applied to any great hunter,
clearly proves that it is used in this case with a superlative sig-
nification, and not in a moral sense. For the words as repeated
are not, as in the English Version, " as Nimrod the mighty hunter
before Jehovah," but "as Nimrod, a mighty hunter before Je-
hovah," the meaning being that any mighty hunter before the
Lord was compared to Nimrod. It is not necessarily implied that
more than the words, "as Nimrod," were proverbially used, as
they still are in the East, the remaining clause being the words
of the writer himself repeated from the previous description of
Nimrod. This remark is made with a view to the difficulty
that would arise, if it were meant that such a proverbial use of
the name Jehovah had prevailed in the writer's time, while its
supposed very recent introduction or revival, according to
Exod vi. 3, would have rendered this proverbial use of it im-
possible in the time of Moses. Rather this clause is the writer's
own way of describing any great hunter, borrowed from its
previous use by himself in reference to Nimrod, all that was
actually proverbial being the comparison with Nimrod. The
possibility of thus understanding the words is, at any rate,
sufficient to neutralise any objection that might be founded on
an alleged proverbial use of the name Jehovah in the time of
Moses, as might be supposed from the English Version to have
been implied by the writer.
§. 2. CH. xi. 1–9. THE CONFUSION OF TONGUES. JEHOVISTIC.
THE entire paragraph relating to the confusion of tongues is
attributed by the critics whom Dr. Davidson represents to the
Redactor, or supposed compiler of the book in its present state.
being a proper name does not take the article, and the word garden may be definite or
indefinite, as the case may be. But even taking it definitely, he is wrong in thinking
that in that case the subsequent mention of the land of Egypt supplies a tertium
comparationis. Plainly the land of Egypt explains the garden of the Lord, the com-
parison with it being put in apposition without the copulative. If the garden of Eden
was meant, the descent from it to the land of Egypt would be a sad anticlimax.
And though this is countenanced by the insertion of the copulative by the LXX., the
Hebrew is not chargeable with it.
1
CH. XI. 1–9.
397
The passage is Jehovistic, and cannot therefore be given to the
Elohist; it is too Jehovistic even for the supposed junior Elohist,
who moreover does not appear before the sixteenth chapter. On
the other hand, it is supposed to embody a different tradition
from that relating to the Noachic family in the previous chap-
ters. And this supposition is grounded on the circumstance
that, while the Noachic descendants are previously represented
as having gone forth from Ararat, this paragraph represents
the migration to have been to the plain of Shinar from some
more eastern region. But Ranke, Untersuchungen, i., p. 186,
justly remarks, that this supposition falls to the ground, when it
is remembered that the well-known signification of Dp is not
hitherwards from the east, but towards the east, as correctly
translated by Luther. Wherever the expression has a local
signification, it signifies on the east side, as in Gen. ii. 8, or
towards the east as in xiii. 11. Isaiah ii. 6 is no exception, as
the preposition there expresses the comparative, "more than the
east," as in the margin of the English Version.
manner of expression to , on the right,
a dextris, and the Greek ek değiŵv of Ps. cx. 1.
imitation of the Hebrew idiom that the LXX. in Gen. xi. 2
translate ȧrò åvaroλav. The force of the preposition in this
Thus a
usage is to express from the side mentioned outwards.
person proceeding towards the east, would set out from the
eastern side of the place from which he is going. This passage is
therefore, in this particular, quite consistent with the previous
account of the descent of the Noachic family from Ararat.
It is a similar
like the Latin
Hence it is in
ἀπὸ ἀνατολῶν.
The passage indeed is very distinct and peculiar, and is marked
by certain characteristics of its own, such as the highly anthro-
pomorphic character of the Divine interposition, rendering the
use of Jehovah, in which the LXX. agree with the Hebrew,
most appropriate, the repetition of the expression, "go to," and
the use of the expressions lip and words to denote language,
instead of tongue as in the previous chapter. Some of the parti-
tionists, however, with a view of strengthening the supposition
398
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
that the present passage preserves a different tradition, and is
chiefly concerned with accounting for the variety of languages,
make the Redactor to have introduced into the preceding chapter
the recurring expression, "after their tongues," at the same time
that he introduced this passage, treating the entire reference to
language as due to him. But it is strange that if he introduced
this passage with its peculiar phraseology in denoting language,
he should at the same moment have introduced a different word
in the previous passage from either of those used here. The
original writer, having finished the tenth chapter as it stands,
might have then at a subsequent period proceeded with the
passage now under consideration. At any rate, it is evidently
formed artificially, like several others, such as the episode of
Abraham's intercession for the cities of the plain, and the
narratives of the commencing chapters; this artificial character
being plainly intended not merely to give beauty to the passages
thus characterised, but to impress them on the memory, and
probably to fit them for the purposes of recitation. The present
passage is also distinguished, partly perhaps for the same end,
by several instances of that alliteration and play on sound and
double senses which characterises the book in general, as already
remarked; and it is thus connected with other parts of the book."
CH. xi. 10–26.
•
בָּנוּ בְּנֵי
VI. THE GENERATIONS OF SHEM.
DESCENDANTS OF SHEM TO ABRAHAM. NO MENTION
OF GOD.
THIS section has no mention of God whatever, but it is
assigned by the partitionists to the Elohist, because it employs
the Hiphil form of the verb, to beget, as in ch. v., instead
of the form in Kal, which appears in the preceding genealogy
assigned to the Jehovist. It has already been shown that no
importance attaches to the frequency of the repetition of this
2 Thus, Dah maha, mani? meniya, jas? maabo, pik-poo, wa-by-18,
CH. XI. 10–26.
399
1
word, as it exists in a recurring formula, the entire number of
instances being only equivalent in this chapter, as in ch. V., to
one instance, and therefore not marking any striking peculiarity
of style. But both here and in ch. v. the descendants are single
persons, the immediate progeny of those by whom they are
begotten, not tribes or families, which are chiefly set out in
ch. x. This difference may possibly have occasioned the dif
ference in the form of the verb, the Kal form of this verb being
used of the remote or the immediate offspring, the Hiphil,
denoting to cause to bring one forth, being used apparently only
of the immediate progeny. But while these genealogies have
for this cause been assigned to different authors, there is a cir-
cumstance noticed by Ranke, Untersuchungen, i., p. 15, which
tends to show a unity of purpose indicating the same author-
ship. He remarks that, while in ch. x. Shem is described as the
father of all the children of Eber, with special reference to
the importance of Eber as the progenitor of the Hebrew race,
yet after his sons Peleg and Joktan are named in v. 25, the
genealogy of Peleg is not traced farther down, while the descend-
ants of Joktan are enumerated. Thus, while the descendants
of Eber are given in the line that least concerned the writer, the
table is manifestly defective in the very particular that must have
been uppermost in his mind. By this omission he says we are
directed to the sequel, namely, the genealogy in ch. xi., where
this deficiency is supplied. In the genealogy of ch. x. the
descent is given until the children of Eber divide into two
branches, one of which is pursued here, the other deferred to be
given in the line from Shem to Abram, Nahor and Haran,
which connects itself more immediately with the succeeding
history. The two genealogies are thus complementary, and
thereby indicate unity of authorship.
¹ Deut. iv. 25 is not properly an exception. The immediate progeny stands in
connexion with the verb, and childrens' children, subjoined after that had been written,
would scarcely in any case have occasioned a change in the form first adopted.
400
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
** Additional Remarks on Chapters I.-XI. 26.
As the Bishop of Natal in the earlier part of his work carried
his investigations only to the close of ch. xi., it may be well
to pause here, and to consider a few arguments on which he so far
relied in support of his speculations, which may not have been
sufficiently examined in the course of the preceding remarks.
(1.) And first in reference to the names of God in the entire
portion of the book, down to this point, he tells us, after his
usual manner, p. 48, that the Elohist uses the name Elohim 56
times in 136 verses, and Jehovah never, while the Jehovist in
157 verses uses Elohim eight times, Jehovah-Elohim 20 times,
and Jehovah 30 times. In order to judge the true significance
of these numbers, as indicating any predominating tendency to
the use of either name, it must be observed that the number of
verses through which either name is diffused is quite irrelevant
to this inquiry, as there are whole tracts of the narrative in
which no occasion for the mention of God presents itself. Then
it has been already remarked in reference to the 35 times in
which the name Elohim occurs in ch. i. ii. 1-3, that owing to the
uniformity of the entire passage, and the regular recurrence
through that whole discourse of the same forms of expression,
and the prevalence throughout of the reason which at the first
suggested the use of Elohim, the repetition of that name is after
all equivalent only to one instance of its use, as indicating any
preference for it. The same remark may be made in reference
to many other passages, in which one or the other name having
been, for whatever reason, once adopted, its repetition through
the remainder of the passage is a matter of course, and does not
add in any respect to the character of the passage as Elohistic
or Jehovistic. The use of the compound name Jehovah Elohim
is indifferent, and indicates no preference for either. Setting
aside the places where this occurs, and reducing to one the
numbers of times in which the same name is repeated as a
matter of course, in sequence with its first adoption, the just-
CH. I. TO XI. 26.
401
Cн. i. ii.
ness of which in each case the reader can judge for himself, the
alternation of the names will be as follows:
...
iii.
iv.
vi.
1
2-16
25
26
V. 1 Elohim,
22-24
Elohim,
29 Jehovah, 1
2-4 Elohim, 2
3 Jehovah, 1
5-8 Jehovah, 4
9-22 Elohim, 5
vii.
viii.
ix.
X.
xi.
1-3 Elohim, 35 times
Elohim, 3
1-5
Jehovah, 1
Jehovah, 8
Elohim, 1
Jehovah, 1
1-5 Jehovah, 2
9 Elohim, 1
16 Elohim,
1 2 3
1 Elohim,
15 Elohim,
Jehovah, L
--- 2 1
1
20, 21 Jehovah, 3.
1-6 Elohim, 2
8-17
Elohim, 4
26 Jehovah, 1
Elohim, 1
27 Elohim, 1
∞
9 Jehovah, 2
5-9 Jehovah, 5
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12
Hence for the purposes of the present enquiry, and as
evidence of any predilection for either name, the case is just
as if in these eleven chapters, in the order of succession and at
the distances here indicated, the name Elohim recurred singly
15 times, and the name Jehovah 12 times. Had these names
been thus thinly scattered, and their places in other instances
been supplied as they might, and in other languages would for
the most part have been, by pronouns or other devices, it is
probable the Jehovist and Elohist as separate writers would
never have been dreamt of. It is only the Oriental, or at any
rate the Hebraistic, habit of repetition which we Westerns
try to avoid, that has given a supposititious importance to the
recurrence and alternation of these names.
26
402
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
(2.) There are several phrases and expressions which are
thought to distinguish the different writers, besides those which
have been noticed as we have proceeded with our inquiry.
Some of these will be best examined after we have gone through
the entire book, such as the use of the two forms of the first
personal pronoun, and the use of the third personal pronoun,
, the employment of the particle N as a preposition in
the sense of with, the use of the particle D, the word for
an hundred in stat. constr. or the contrary, and and some others.
A few that more particularly belong to these earlier chapters,
may, however, be noticed here.
1. The compound yaba,
nbyphp, “from above, upwards,” in vi.
16 and vii. 20, is a mere accidental coincidence.-2. The
expression, "creepeth upon the earth," repeated in the enumer-
ations of different creatures, is adopted as a matter of course
from ch. i. It is sometimes "upon the ground," as in vii. 8,
sometimes " upon the earth," as in vii. 21. The Elohist has
both words, "earth" and "ground," in ch. i., and the Jehovist
both in ii. 6, 7.-3. In the same connexion the use of the words
and is insisted on. Both, whether as verbs or sub-
stantives, occur in the Elohistic parts. They are distinguished
as denoting different creatures in ch i., and so are enumerated
separately in the history of the deluge, which follows the enu-
meration of the creatures in that chapter. The substantive
is used also in the passages ascribed to the Jehovist, vi. 7 and
vii. 23. In the Jehovistic commencement of ch. vii., the men-
tion being only of clean and unclean animals, there was no
occasion for mentioning these words, and though there is no
mention of in the Jehovistic enumerations in vi. 7 and vii.
23, yet it is to be observed that it is also omitted in the Elo-
histic vii. 8, while is specified, as also is the case in vii.
14.-4. The expressions, "all flesh," and, "wherein is breath
of life," are said to distinguish the Elohist, while every living
substance, DP, and "in whose nostrils was breath of
life," in vii. 22, 23, distinguish the Jehovist. But the fact is
p
רמש שרץ
CH. I. TO XI. 26.
403
only, that advantage is taken of the recurrence of the former of
these expressions with others, in the copiousness of the writer's
style, to assign v. 23 to the Jehovist, of whose style it cannot
then in turn become a test. The expression, "wherein is
breath of life," is referred to i. 30, as Elohistic, and "in whose
nostrils was breath of life," to ii. 7, as Jehovistic. But in
i. 30 the expression is not "breath of life," but "a soul of life,”
or “living soul,” as in the Jehovistic ii. 7; and in vii. 22, we have
the same phrase, "breath of life," as in vi. 17, with the addition of
the word "nostrils," and the word translated "breath " in ii. 7.1
The so-called Elohistic and Jehovistic passages are by these
expressions closely bound together, instead of being distin-
guished and separated. Much cannot now be made of the ex-
pression, "all flesh," apart from that which is connected with it
in these passages of chapters vi. and vii.-5. The word in,
"the deep," in Gen. i. 2, vii. 11, and viii. 2, is thought to
characterise the Elohist, and its use in the latter places to have
reference to the waters below the firmament in ch. i., as dis-
tinguished from the waters above, to which the windows of
heaven would have reference. Whatever may be thought
of this supposed reference, the word itself-the use of which in
ch. vii. and viii. is only equivalent to one instance, the second
being a mere repetition of the first-can scarcely be regarded as
specially indicating the Elohist, when it is to be found, as its
only subsequent place of occurrence, in xlix. 25, which is
assigned to the Jehovist.-6. The verb in the sense of
"began," in vi. 1, ix. 20, x. 8, and xi. 6, as compared with
iv. 26, is thought to indicate the Jehovist. But the conjugation.
אֲשֶׁר־בּוֹ נֶפֶשׁ חַיָּה-30 .E. Gen. i 1
בְּאַפָּיו נִשְׁמַת חַיִּים - 7 .J. Gen. ii
וַיְהִי הָאָדָם לְנֶפֶשׁ חַיָּה
אֲשֶׁר־בּוֹ רוּחַ חַיִּים-17 .E. Gen. vi
J. Gen. vii. 22—Den man nova s
בְאַפּיו.
It is plain from the comparison of these phrases that the forms of expression are
equally characteristic of both the supposed writers.
404
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
is different, if the meaning is not doubtful, in iv. 26. Its use in
this sense, however, appears to be confined to passages given to the
Jehovist, valeat quantum, only that some give ix. 20 to a different
writer.-7. In vi. 6, , "grieved himself," is compared
with the word for "sorrow" in iii. 16, 17, and in v. 29,
jy
which latter, however, is merely a reference to the former. The
use of the verb in one place and the noun in another will hardly
be thought to indicate any distinctive similarity of style.-8.
The use of in, for male and female, in vii. 2, which
however the Samaritans do not follow, is adduced as a Je-
hovistic peculiarity; but as it is admitted that immediately
after, in v. 3, the words used by the Elohist, 71, are
also employed, much weight is not attached to this peculi-
arity.-9. The form 7, "food," in vi. 21 and ix. 3, as com-
pared with i. 29, is regarded as an Elohistic distinction; but in
vi. 21 we have also the form, which is likewise used in the
Jehovistic ii. 2 and iii. 6.-10. in vi. 5, and viii. 21, denoting
imagination or figment of the mind, is compared with the verb
used in ch. ii. to express the formation of man and animals
of the dust of the earth. But, besides the difference between
the words, as verb and noun, the use is figurative in one place
and quite literal in the other. The comparison is therefore far
from indicating any Jehovistic similarity of style.-11. Because
is used in vii. 22 to denote the dry land, while is
used for the same purpose in i. 9, 10, this difference is thought
to suggest different writers; as if the same writer might not
have varied his expression, and that after a sufficient interval to
have lost sight of the word previously used. Surely this is
great trifling. So is also the reference to Dp in vii. 4 and 23,
as characterising the Jehovist; the latter follows as a matter of
course from the former: every living substance was to be des-
troyed, and so it is declared that every living substance was des-
troyed, the sameness of the writer being admitted on all hands
as regards these passages. The same may be said of V, "to
die," in vi. 17 and vii. 21; and of for a wild beast in ch. i.,
405
CH. I. TO XI. 26.
•
in vii. 14, and in viii. 1, 17, 19, as Elohistic words. If the sepa-
rated parts were proved to belong to different writers, then these
coincidences would to some extent countenance the appropria-
tion of the parts where they occur to the same one of them;
but they give no help to the separation of these passages from
the parts assigned to the other. It is not clear, indeed, that the
Bishop means to use these comparisons farther than as indica-
tions of the sameness of authorship, except when he contrasts
them with other forms of expression. But as no one questions.
the sameness of their authorship, something more seems to be
suggested, as if these resemblances tended to differentiate the
passages in which they occur, from others from which they are
simply absent. If they are not distinctive, it is mere trifling to
adduce them.-12. There are a few more similar resemblances,
to which as these remarks apply, it will be enough simply to
indicate them. Thus i. 31, "Elohim saw. . . and behold," and
vi. 12, "Elohim saw and behold:" iii. 16, "Thy desire,”
etc., and iv. 7, "his desire," etc.: ii. 19, "to see," and viii. 8,
"to see:" iii. 23, 1, "send forth," applied to exclusion from
Eden, and viii. 8, 12, applied to sending the dove from the ark;
but in the former case, the word is used with a paranomastic
reference to its previous use in a quite different sense, v. 22, "Lest
he send forth his hand... therefore Jehovah sent him forth:"
in iv. 2," added to bear," and viii. 10, 12, "added to send," and
“added not to return,"-the usual way of expressing repetition :
to signify the time when, in iii. 8, " at the cool of the day,"
and viii. 11, "at the time of evening:" "be fruitful and multi-
ply," in i. 22, 28, and afterwards in the Elohistic parts of the
history of the deluge, where, however, it is mere reference to
ch. i.: beginning of arts, in ch. iii., and of making wine in ix.
20, 21; but here it is not wine that began to be made, but Noah
began to be a husbandman, which Cain was before; the expres-
sion, moreover, being different, as Cain was a servant of the
ground,” and Noah "a man of the ground:" the covenant to
be established in vi. 18, compared with that in ix. 11; but
(6
-
406
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
though there is verbal similitude, the covenants are different:
curses in iii., and the curse of Canaan in ix., besides reference to
the curse of the ground in v. 29 and viii. 21, where, however, the
word for curse is different: y, in viii. 21, compared with a
similar phrase in viii. 12: 1, "on account of," in iii. 17
and viii. 21 in reference to the curse of the ground: 5, "to
smite," in iv. 15 and viii. 21: "remember," in viii. 1 and ix.
16: for set or place, of the heavenly bodies, in Gen. i., and
of the bow in ix. 13; but the word is not used out of its common
sense in either place: "make a name," in xi. 4, compared with
"men of name," in vi. 4: Jehovist's knowledge of geography
in ch. x., compared with like knowledge in ch. ii., which latter
is no knowledge at all, as it is plain no such four rivers proceed
from a common source (see Dis. I., pt. ii.): 7, in ii. 10, for
the dividing of the river of Eden, and the same word in x. 5
for the dispersion of tribes: 7, "was born" in iv. 18, and like
word in x. 1: 2, "everything living," in iii. 20 and viii.
21: distributive use of in vii. 21, viii. 17, and ix. 2: "animal
of the field" in ii. 19, 20, and iii. 1, 14, contrasted with "animal
of the earth” in ix. 2, 10: "and to Seth, even to him was born,"
in iv. 26, as of Shem in x. 21; but from the position of NDA
in the latter place, it is probable that it should be construed with
what follows, "also he was the father," not "to him also was
born:", he was, in iv. 20, 21, and x. 9:, therefore,
in ii. 24 and x. 9: the window in the ark in vi. 16 and in viii. 6;
but the word for window is not the same in both places, which
the Bishop would say in another case suggests a different
writer. A large proportion of these phrases and words are
such as might have occurred in any writings, being the
current modes of expression for certain ideas, though it is freely
|
1 It seems scarcely necessary to mention the difference noticed between the
Jehovistic expression, "thou and all thine house," in vii. 1, and the enumeration
of the members of Noah's family in the Elohistic portions. The use of the word 'n
is also noticed as a Jehovistic negative in iii. 11 and iv. 15. Its subsequent occur-
rences are xxi. 26, which Davidson's table assigns to the junior Elohist, perhaps that
he should not give this word to the earlier Elohist, xxxviii. 9, given to the Jehovist,
xliii. 3, and xlvii. 18, passages given to Jehovist.
CH. I. TO XI. 26.
407
admitted that they mark a considerable resemblance of style in
passages, which were never doubted to have proceeded from
the same author. They certainly do not distinguish the
style from other parts sufficiently to indicate different author-
ship. Many have been ascribed to the Jehovist in particular,
simply on account of these resemblances; that is, by a careful
selection a style has been made, and then that style has been
relied on in proof of a separation of the passages thus cha-
racterised.—13. In this portion, viz. in vi. 18 and in ch. ix.,
occurs the phrase 'D', "to establish a covenant," which,
with the phrase, is supposed to characterise the Elohist,
as distinguished from 3, "to cut," etc., regarded as the
Jehovistic formula. The passages in which either phrase occurs
are too few to establish any decided usage in connexion with
other Jehovistic or Elohistic peculiarities. The first mentioned
expression occurs in only three instances in this book, except
when it is repeated in this ninth chapter and in xvii., first in
in vi. 18, then in ix. 9, simply repeated again in ix. 11, and
referred to in v. 17, and thirdly in xvii. 7, 21, the other phrase
being used in xvii. 2. Now in none of these places
would the other formula, which implies the ratification of a
covenant by sacrifice, have been properly used. In vi. 18 God
simply makes a promise or engagement without any ratification
or token whatever. In ch. ix. he makes an engagement or
promise, giving as a sign or token of its fulfilment the bow in
the cloud, in which connexion any reference to the slaying of a
victim, as implied in the other phrase, would be plainly im-
proper. In ch. xvii. the covenant of circumcision is established
also without any sacrifice. God first says he will give his cove-
nant, by which expression is to be understood the giving of the
sign or token of the covenant, namely circumcision; and so in
. 13 we read, “My covenant shall be in your flesh." Then
in v. 7 he varies the expression, using the word "establish,"
literally, “cause to arise," the expression which would imply a
sacrifice being quite consistently avoided. On the other hand,
408
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
the instances of the other formula all have reference to cases
where the covenant is ratified by sacrifice. These are also few
but clear. First, in ch. xv. Abraham by God's desire takes the
victims and divides their carcases, and a smoking fire and burn-
ing lamp passes between the parts. Immediately after this it is
added, that on that day Jehovah made a covenant with him, the
verb being here. Again, in xxi. 27, 32, the Elohistic con-
nexion of which is sought to be evaded by attributing that
passage to the supposed junior Elohist, there was plainly a
sacrifice of some of the sheep and oxen, of which it is said that
Abraham "took sheep and oxen and gave them to Abimelech, and
both of them made a covenant." In xxvi. 28, 30, in like manner,
the feast mentioned in the latter verse plainly implies the slaying
of a victim in ratification of the covenant, of which they afterwards
eat. Lastly, in xxxi. 44 the same phrase is used, the proposi-
tion there made for the establishing of a covenant being carried
into effect by the sacrifice described in v. 54. The expressions
therefore, as employed in this book, are not interchangeable in
their signification. The one is used in reference to one particular
manner of making a covenant, the others in reference to cases
in which the former would be wholly out of place. The use of
the expression in the other books of the Pentateuch is quite con-
sistent with the usage in Genesis. In Exod. xxiv. 8 Moses at
Horeb, sprinkling the people, says, "Behold the blood of the
covenant which Jehovah hath made with you." This is plainly
a case in which the covenant was made with sacrifice, and it is
referred to again in several places, the same formula being used
in reference to it.¹ In Deut. xxix. 1 mention is made of a com-
mand given to Moses to make a covenant with the children of
Israel, beside the covenant he had made with them at Horeb.
Doubtless the new covenant was to be made in the same manner
as the former, and the significance of the expression is thus pre-
served. This is again referred to under the same phrase in
xxix. 14 and xxxi. 16. Besides these instances, the expression
¹ Exod. xxxiv. 10, 27, Deut. iv. 23, v. 2, 3, ix. 9, xxix. 1.
CH. I. TO XI. 26.
409
is used four or five times in speaking of a league or covenant
between the children of Israel and other nations, where its appro-
priateness is undoubted, the universal practice of ancient times
having been to make a league by slaying a victim, as expressed.
by the Greek öρkia тéµveiv, repeated in the Latin fœdus ferire.
Wherever the expression is used therefore in the Pentateuch it
has a special significance. The instances of the other phrases in
these books are few. In Exod. vi. 4 the reference is probably to
Gen. xvii., where the sacrificial phrase was inappropriate. In
Lev. xxvi. 9, and Deut. viii. 18, the expression does not refer to
the making of the covenant at all, but to the subsequent confirm-
ing and making it good. This is also the case with the giving the
covenant to Phinehas in Num. xxv. 12, which simply means the
special appropriation to Phinehas of the already existing cove-
nant of the priesthood. Thus the use of these varying formulæ
for the making of a covenant does not depend on the habitual
absence of the idea of sacrifice from the mind of one writer, and
its presence in the mind of another, as might be alleged, but on the
circumstances related in each particular case. If the covenant was
one made by sacrifice, the sacrificial term was employed; if it was
a case in which no sacrifice was made, a more general form of ex-
pression was used. In later books of the Bible the terms may have
become more indiscriminate in their use, as when Job says, "I
have made a covenant with mine eyes;" but such is not the case in
the Pentateuch.-14. Another expression relied on as Jehovistic
(Davidson, p. 30) is, as in Gen. vi. 8, “ Noah found grace
in the eyes of Jehovah." Its use in this Jehovistic connexion is
easily explained. The proper expression is not simply "to find
favour," but "to find favour in the eyes of" the person men-
tioned, or in his sight. Through the entire book the expression
is used about a dozen times, and in all these instances, except vi. 8,
it is used in conversation with, and in reference to, men or angels
appearing as men. It so happens that these conversations, on
account of the brief and summary nature of the passages ascribed
to the Elohist after ch. xvii., are given to the full and copious
410
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
narrative of the Jehovist. Had the Elohistic narrative embraced
many conversations of this kind, the phrase, which was plainly
a conversational formula in common use, would doubtless be
found in these also. As it is, there was scarcely an opportunity
for its use by the Elohist in the passages ascribed to him, how-
ever disposed he might have been to have so expressed himself
on a suitable occasion. In the one instance in which it is used
in speaking of God in this book, namely vi. 8, the anthropistic
character of the phrase naturally connects it with the personal,
and so frequently anthropomorphic, Jehovah.
(3). A style of copious iteration, coupled with a variation of
expression which is repeated in the successive repetitions, has
made possible, as regards the deluge, a separation into two nar-
ratives, and at the same time the giving to each a certain
semblance of proper style. However, even after this ingenious
separation, it may perhaps be possible to detect sufficient marks
of resemblance between the separated parts of this account of
the deluge compared with one another, and with the other por-
tions previously assigned to the different authors, as well as in
those other portions compared together, to weaken the force of the
characteristics just enumerated, and to give good ground for
supposing that all proceeded from the same author. It will be well
now to observe these points of resemblance between the parts
assigned to the different authors, of whose writings the narrative is
supposed to be compiled. 1. At the very outset the Elohistic Gen.
i. announces the creation of the heavens and the earth, and in the
course of the chapter the expression is sometimes varied to make.
Both are united, "created to make," in the last clause of this sec-
tion, ii. 3. Then at the commencement of the Jehovistic account
of the creation in ch. ii., there is mention of "heavens and earth
in their creating, in the day that Jehovah Elohim made earth
and heavens." And again we find the two expressions, "created"
and "made," in the Jehovistic vi. 7, in reference to animals and
man, as in i. 25-27.-2. The Elohistic manner of expression,
ch. i., "the face of the deep," "the face of the waters," "the
CH. I. TO XI. 26.
411
>>
face of all the earth," and in vii. 18, "the face of the waters,'
23 and viii. 13, "the face of the ground," is in like manner to
be found in its several forms in the Jehovistic ii. 6, "all the
face of the ground," iv. 14, "face of the ground," and again in
vi. 1, 7, "face of all the earth," vii. 3, "face of the ground,'
vii. 4, and again in viii. 8, " face of all the earth," viii. 9, and
again xi. 4, 8, 9.-3. The antithetic forms in ch. i., characteris-
ing the Elohist, such as heavens and earth, light and darkness,
day and night, evening and morning, dry land and water,
waters above the firmament and waters below the firmament,
are not only paralleled in the subsequent Elohistic "clean beasts
and beasts not clean," vii. 8, and "windows of heaven and
fountains of the deep," vii. 11, but also in the Jehovistic "good
and evil," ii. 17, "beast of the field and fowl of the air," ii. 19,
seed of the woman and seed of the serpent, his heel and its head,
iii. 16, "sons of God and daughters of men," vi. 2, "forty
days and forty nights," viii. 4, "seed time and harvest, cold
and heat, summer and winter, day and night," viii. 22.-4.
"Elohim saw,” i. 12, etc., and vi. 12, and "Jehovah saw," vi. 5.
-5. "To rule over" expressed by in the Elohistic i. 16,
and in the Jehovistic iii. 16 and iv. 7.-6. Elohim speaks to
himself in the plural form, "Let us make man," in i. 26,
Jehovah Elohim, "The man is become as one of us, in iii. 22,
and Jehovah, "Go to, let us go down," in xi. 7.-7. In ch. i. man
and other creatures are bid to be fruitful and multiply, and vi. 1,
""
men began to multiply."-8. The enumeration of animals sub-
jugated to man in i. 26 mentions the fishes of the sea, the fowl of
the heavens, the cattle, and everything that creepeth on the earth;
and the animals to be destroyed besides man, in the Jehovistic
vi. 7, are the cattle, the creeping things, and the fowl of the
heavens, fishes being of course excluded there. And the same
enumeration occurs again in the Jehovistic vii. 23. Thus if the
other enumerations of ch. i. are paralleled in the subsequent
Elohistic parts, this is in the Jehovistic.-9. The Elohistic
grant of food in ch. i., as far as expressed, is only of trees and
>>
412
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
herbs; so likewise the Jehovistic grant in ch. ii. is only of the
fruit of trees, no grant of flesh for food being there expressed.
It may be allowed to the Bishop of Natal, that iv. 4 implies the
use of animal food. "The fat thereof" does not, indeed, mean
the fat as distinguished from the rest of the flesh supposed to
have been eaten, but the best of the flock, as in Num. xviii. 29.
But the keeping of sheep may be taken to imply the use of
animal food, as the grant of dominion over all animals in ch. i.
may be supposed to imply the use of them for food as for other
purposes. Thus these passages coincide in the implied grant of
animal food, as in the expressed grant of vegetable.-10. The
week of seven days, and the sanctification of the seventh day, in
the first Elohistic passage, find their counterpart in the sevens
of clean animals, the seven days' warning before the deluge
begins, and the intervals of seven days in the story of the raven
and the dove, all ascribed to the Jehovist, as well as in the
sevenfold, and seventy and sevenfold, vengeance to be taken on
him who should slay Cain and Lamech in ch. iv.-11. It seems
in reference to this protection of the homicides in ch. iv., which
is Jehovistic, that the sentence of punishment to be inflicted on
the shedder of man's blood in the Elohistic ch. ix. is pro-
nounced; "whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood
be shed." The words, "at the hand of every man's brother will
I require the life of man," unmistakeably refer to the inquiry
by Jehovah in ch. iv., "What hast thou done? the voice of
thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground.”—12. In
iv. 15 Jehovah gives a sign or token to Cain, that no one find-
ing should kill him, not, as in the English Version, sets a mark
upon him, which would rather tend to cause his destruction by
identifying him to those that should find him. The original is
in אתתַי אֲשֶׁר שַׂמְתִּי which may be compared with יָשָׁם אוֹת
T
Exod. x. 2. Then in ch. ix. 12 the bow, which Elohim sets or
gives in the clouds, is given for a token or sigu, is, of the
covenant not to destroy the earth any more by a flood.-13.
Seth as the son of Adam, and Enos as his son, of whose birth an
CH. I. TO XI. 26.
413
מִקְצֵה The word
account is given at the close of the Jehovistic ch. iv., re-appear
in the Elohistic account of the descendants of Adam in ch. v.
It is a gratuitous assumption that Seth appears in this latter as
the eldest son. The object is only to trace one particular line,
namely that from which the promised seed should issue. In
that line more than once a younger son takes the place of an
elder, as in the case of Shem, of Isaac, of Jacob, of Judah, of
Pharez, and as in that of David and of Solomon in later times.-
14. The Jehovistic distinction of clean and unclean animals in
vii. 2 and in viii. 20 appears also in the Elohistic vii. 8,
a coincidence which neutralises the apparent inconsistence
between the numbers taken according to either passage.-15.
"after the end of the 150 days," in the
Elohistic viii. 3, may be compared with viii. 6, ascribed to the
Jehovist, P, "after the end of forty days." The choice of
the briefer word here is not owing to a different habit of speak-
ing, but to the hiatus which the final might occasion with the
word for "forty" following, which begins with N.-16. Jehovah's
observation of the wickedness of man in vi. 5 may be compared
with Elohim looking upon the earth, and seeing its corruption
in vi. 12; though the phraseology is something different, yet
the thought is similar.-17. The similarity has already been
noticed between "a soul of life" in the Elohistic i. 30, and “a
living soul" in the Jehovistic ii. 7, in both; and again
between the ", "breath of life," in the Elohistic vi. 17
and vii. 15, and in vii. 22 ascribed to the Jehovist.-18. Stress
was laid on the different words used by the supposed different
authors to express the destruction to be occasioned by the flood,
wipe, properly wash away, in one case, and corrupt in the other.
The destruction is, however, also expressed by dying, in the Elo-
histic vi. 17 and vii. 21, and then in the next verse ascribed to the
Jehovist. It is true the verb in one case is and in the other
.מות
. But the change of verb is sufficiently accounted for by
the needful variation in the repeated mention of the death of all
creatures, on the supposition of only one author. The two
414
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
verbs are combined in the formal mention of the death of Abra-
ham in xxv. 8, of Ishmael in xxv. 17, and of Isaac in xxxv.
29. It is true these verses are ascribed to the Elohist, the
greater part of the chapters in which they occur being given to
the Jehovist, not on the ground of any prevalence of the name
Jehovah, for they are all Elohistic in this respect, but simply
for the exigencies of the theory. Perhaps the unwillingness to
allow the Jehovist to use the word V may be one reason of the
separation. The combination of the words by either destroys
the distinctiveness of the usage.-18. The verb substantive
followed by with the verb denoting what took place, occurs in
"
the Jehovistic iv. 8, vi. 1, vii. 10, and viii. 6, this manner of
speaking being rendered in the English Version, "It came
to pass that."
The same manner of expression occurs in the
Elohistic viii. 13, "It came to pass that," ix. 14, "It shall come
to pass that," and then re-appears in the Jehovistic xi. 2.
The alliterations, and play upon the sounds and double senses
of words, already noticed, and frequently recurring through the
entire book, may also be recalled here as equally characterising
the parts ascribed to the Jehovist and the Elohist.
These points of resemblance in the parts assigned to the dif-
ferent writers, in these earlier chapters of Genesis, tend to
neutralise the characteristics which are relied on as distinctive.
Such verbal grounds of distinction or identification are, how-
ever, greatly weakened as evidence on either side, in the case of
Hebrew writings, in which the prevalence of repetitions with
variations of expression affords an opportunity of dividing a nar-
rative into two, each of which may stand in a certain way by
itself, care being taken to assign to each such of the duplicate
statements as best agree in phraseology together.
415
CH. XI. 27.-XIII.
VII. THE GENERATIONS OF TERAH.
§. 1. CH. XI. 27-XII. 4. FROM THE BIRTH OF ABRAHAM TO HIS
DEPARTURE FROM HARAN. JEHOVISTIC.
§. 2. CH. XII. 4 (LAST CLAUSE) -20. FROM THE DEPARTURE FROM
HARAN TO THE DEPARTURE FROM EGYPT.
JEHOVISTIC.
§. 3. CH. XIII. FROM THE RETURN FROM EGYPT TO THE SETTLE-
MENT IN MAMRE. JEHOVISTIC.
The larger section headed "The generations of Terah" con-
tains the history of the chosen family, from Abraham's birth till
his death as related in xxv. It has been made an objection against
the integrity of the book, that no section exists entitled "The
generations of Abraham," but that his history is subordinated
to that of Terah. The reason of this, however, is probably not
that any separate title, which might have existed originally has
slipped out, or been omitted by the compiler of the supposed
separate narratives. But the chosen race was not derived from
Abraham only, but from Sarah also, to whom in this history an
almost equal importance is attached; and the pair are therefore
included under their common progenitor, Terah, the father of
Abraham and uncle of Sarah, from whom also the other female.
ancestors of the twelve tribes, Rebekah, and Rachel and Leah,
in whose names their handmaids bore children to Jacob, were
derived. Hence Terah is set at the head of this section, his
descendants being for the purposes of this history traced
through Nahor and Haran, as well as through Abraham. If a
separate title, “The generations of Abraham," had ever existed,
its place would have been before the last clause of xii. 4, where
at any rate a new section begins.
The importance of keeping distinct the subsections, into
which this part naturally resolves itself, has been already insisted
on, and its bearing on the present inquiry fully shown. For
the general purposes of the inquiry, however, it will be more
convenient to consider together the three lesser sections above
noted.
416
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
Before we advert to the Jehovistic character of these pas-
sages, there are some particulars that require to be noticed.
The first of these is the mention in xii. 6 that, at the time of
Abram's arrival in the land of Canaan, "the Canaanite was
then in the land," and in xiii. 7, the Canaanite and the Periz-
zite. It has already been shown that the repetition of this
particular, so soon after its first mention, is attributable to the
writer's custom of repeating in the separate portions such
matters as seemed of moment to give them the needful
completeness and independence. And in the first instance,
the existence of the Canaanites in the land is mentioned
with special reference to the first promise of that land
to Abraham, a promise not of an unoccupied and vacant
country, but of one already in full occupation, such as required
a frequent removal on the part of Abraham and his company
for want of room. Nor was this a matter needless to be men-
tioned in the writer's apprehension. For though the occupa-
tion of the land by Canaanitish tribes at the subsequent periods
of the history was notorious enough, yet it might not have
seemed so clear that they had arrived before Abraham's migra-
tion thither. We learn from x. 15-17, that the sons of Canaan
had grown into tribes before they migrated from their original
dwelling, the greater part of Canaan's descendants being only
described by tribal patronymics, such as the Jebusite, the
Amorite, and so forth; that afterwards, that is, plainly, after
they had thus become distinct tribes, the families of the
Canaanites were dispersed; and that then, as expressed by the
conversive vau,, the border of the Canaanites came to be
(éyéveto, LXX.) from Sidon unto Gaza. Now considering how
short an interval this history allows from the deluge to the
migration of Abraham, and how much time the Canaanites
would have taken to become tribes large enough to be obliged
to migrate, we see that it might not have appeared to the writer
so evident that they had already arrived in the land before Abra-
ham came there, and received the promise of it as an inheritance,
CH. XI. 27.-XIII.
417
as not to deserve distinct mention. The repetition in ch. xiii.
had a different object, namely to account for the want of room
for the great flocks and herds of Abraham and Lot. The form
of the verb is specially appropriate there, , "was dwelling,"
occupying the country, so as to leave insufficient room for Abram
and Lot. There is no ground therefore for supposing that these
clauses are antiquarian remarks, betraying a date when those
inhabitants had long disappeared.
In the use of the name Bethel there is an instance of the
writer's habit of employing names proleptically, if this is not
to be attributed, as already suggested, to the translation of the
original into a more modern dialect. As it is impossible to say
at what period the city of Arba came to be called Hebron, this
remark may be unnecessary in regard to the mention of that place
in xiii. 18. Hengstenberg, Authentie, ii. p. 190-1, justly infers
from Gen. xxiii., that Hebron not being in the possession of
the Anakim in Abraham's time, as may be gathered from the
absence of any reference to such remarkable occupants, and from
the simple mention of the sons of Heth as its possessors, Kirjath-
Arba was not the name of the place in this Patriarch's time.
Having come into the possession of Arba after Abraham's time,
it received the name of Kirjath-Arba from him, a designation
which presupposes a proper name besides. This was Hebron,
in addition to which, it was also called Mamre in Abraham's
time, after its possessor Mamre, as it was afterwards called
Arba from a subsequent possessor. Hengstenberg well remarks,
that if Anakim or giants had been there in Abraham's time, some
reference would have been made to the might of these inhabit-
ants, when with the assistance of Mamre, who was confederate
with him, he went to the rescue of the five kings. The ex-
pression in xiii. 18, "the plain of Mamre, which is in Hebron,"
would seem to indicate that this latter name was at that time
given to a district, as well as, if not rather than, to a city.
•
In the table of passages ascribed to the several authors,
Davidson, p. 58-9, the whole of ch. xii. is given to the Jehovist
27
418
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
1
except the last part of v. 4, from "and Abram,” and v. 5,
which are given to the Elohist. The concluding verses of
ch. xi., which had been given to the Elohist, containing the
removal of Terah and his family from Ur of the Chaldees, and
their settlement in Haran, the command to Abram in xii. 1 to
depart from his country and kindred is the natural sequel to
that particular. Haran had become his country, when his
father and kindred had settled there; and now the command
is, not to leave Ur of the Chaldees, but to separate, not only
from his country, but from his kindred and his father's house,
which there was no occasion of mentioning at the removal to
Haran, as all went together. The pluperfect of the English
version, “the Lord had said," as if referring to some command
given on a previous occasion, the fulfilment of which was de-
ferred till after Terah's death, is quite wrong.
The gram-
matical construction is in favour of the subsequence of the com-
mand to Terah's death, and should be left as it is: "And the
Lord said."3 The LXX. translate correctly, Kaì eîπe Kúριos.
The English Version has plainly in view the statement of St.
Stephen in Acts vii., which represents the command as prior to
the migration from Ur, and the removal to Canaan as subse-
quent to Terah's death. St. Stephen seems to have followed
the Jewish opinion of that day; for Philo also represents this
1 Kuenen only gives the Elohist v. 5, "Pentateuch and Joshua," translated by
Colenso, p. 131.
2 The Bishop of Natal, note to Kuenen, p. 31, says that certainly xi. 28-30 is
Jehovistic. In proof of this he refers us from v. 29 to iv. 19, relying no doubt on the
similarity of the phraseology in these verses. Of course no one doubts that they
were by the same writer, except some of his fellow partitionists, and therefore the
phraseology is only an argument against them. And we have the same phrase, "to
take to him a wife," ascribed to the Elohist in xxviii. 6. The mention of Sarai's
barrenness cannot be considered out of place, when it is remembered how important
this fact was to the entire history regarded in its existing unity. Here it is
mentioned at the outset immediately after Sarai's marriage. It is no vain repetition
to mention it again in xvi. 1 after a long interval, during which her barrenness might
have ceased, and in a connexion where it is highly relevant. Ile contrasts the
mention here that there was no child to her," with the stress laid elsewhere on its
being to Abraham that there was no child, and that a child should be born to him.
There was no promise, however, yet to Abraham, and the latter clause in xi. 30, is
only the Hebraistic repetition of the first in a different form.
(C
3 [The Jewish Scribes, however, placed the Nun happuchah, or inverted Nun, after
xi. 32, to indicate that this verse was inserted parenthetically.]
419
9. A
ت
CH. XI. 27.-XIII.
migration as after Terah's death. The Samaritan reading of
Terah's age, namely an hundred and forty five years, would
sustain this view. Wall, Critical Notes, vol. i., p. 17, suspect-
that
ing that the Samaritans purposely altered the age, says
Haran must have been the eldest of Terah's sons, as his brothers
married his two daughters, and supposes that Abraham was
not born till sixty years after Haran, though he is named first
in v. 26. We have seen that Shem, though not the eldest son of
Noah, was the first named in v. 32. Here, as there in the case of
Shem, the importance of Abram in the writer's mind would have
occasioned the mention of his name first. However this may have
been, and whether or not the migration from Ur was in obedi-
ence to a Divine command, plainly a new command is given
to Abram, to make a further migration, and he is bid to separate
from his father's house.¹ And then in due course of the narra-
tive, the fulfilment of that command having been mentioned in
the first clause of v. 4, and the circumstance that Lot accom-
panied him, his age at the time of the departure from Haran
is also mentioned. This is quite natural, the departure from
Haran having been just related. But if this is separated from
its contents, and joined as part of the Elohistic narrative to the
end of ch. xi., then the departure from Haran is assumed by this
Elohistic writer as known by his readers, though not previously
mentioned by him. Abram was in Haran at the close of ch. xi.,
and it is then, according to this supposition, abruptly added
that he was seventy and five years old "at his departing from
Haran." Plainly a reader would at once suspect that some
omission had given rise to this hiatus. The difficulty is not
2
1 The Bishop of Natal, Pt. v., Crit. Anal. p. 46-7, thinks that Terah was still
living at this time. He does not draw any inference from this, but perhaps intends
that the command to Abram to go out from "his father's house" in xii. 1, ascribed
to the Jehovist, implies that his father was dead, and so is at variance with what is
ascribed to the Elohist in ch. xi. If this was intended by the Bishop it will not stand
examination. Jacob in xxviii. 20 speaks of coming again to his father's house, while
Isaac was still living.
2 This objection, however, would not apply to the assumptive manner of referring
to the departure in this last clause of v. 4, if it be made part of the prefatory notice
prefixed to a new section in the existing narrative, as already suggested; for in that
case the departure would have been just mentioned in the previous section and known
to the reader thereby.
420
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
removed by the more detailed account of the departure in v. 5,
for this comes after the assumed understanding of that event
by the reader, as of something already mentioned. As the narra-
tive at present exists, this detailed mention of Abram's removal
comes in as a matter of course, supplying particulars needed for
the completeness of the narrative in the new section now com-
mencing. It adds also that it was not merely Abram himself
and Lot that went, as lonely wanderers, which the previous
mention of the departure in v. 4 might only signify, but Abram
took with him his wife, and they both took all their substance,
which they had acquired during a protracted stay in Haran ;
and it was not simply that they left Haran which is now men-
tioned, but that they left it to go into the land of Canaan, and
that into the land of Canaan they came. And then further, if
the last clause of v. 4, and v. 5, be taken out of their places,
the statement in the remaining Jehovistic narrative, that
Abram departed as the Lord had spoken to him, followed by
the mention in v. 6, that he passed through the land, no men-
tion having been yet made of the land of Canaan, would signify
that he journeyed through Haran "unto the place of Sichem,
unto the plain of Moreh," and with the clause, "the Canaanite
was then in the land," would imply that it was in Haran that
Sichem, and the plain of Moreh, and the Canaanite were. Such at
least is the import of the words according to their grammatical
structure, as collocated by the partitionists. On the other hand,
a complete, connected, and rational narrative is presented by
the history in its present form. The Bishop of Natal, pt. v.
Crit. Anal. p. 47, says, indeed, it is very noticeable that the
Elohist represents Abram as continuing his migration to the
land of Canaan of his own accord, without any special call or
blessing, his only call being that given to his father, and the
blessing being deferred to a later period, as described in xvii.,
whereas, the Jehovist makes him go by a special call, and with
an immediate blessing, xii. 1-3. This discrepancy, however, is
merely the effect of the partition, and cannot be adduced as an
CH. XI. 27.-XIII.
421
argument in favour of it. The Bishop makes a further dis-
agreement in the fact that by v. 1 Abram was to go to an un-
known country which Jehovah was to show him, whereas by
v. 5 he set out to go into the land of Canaan. But there is no
contradiction: Abram took his course to the land of Canaan
'not knowing whither he went;" that is, what was to be his
final destination. This he learned afterwards.
CC
So, likewise, ch. xiii. is given to the Jehovist with the excep-
tion of v. 6 and parts of 11 and 12. It was necessary to make
the Elohist mention the separation of Abram and Lot, and the
reason of it. Hence advantage is taken of the characteristic
repetitions, and of the mention first of the want of room in the
land for both Abram and Lot, and then of the consequent strife
between their herdsmen, to separate sufficient from the general
history to give the Elohist a brief reference to Abram's parting
from Lot. This is effected by giving him v. 6, which states the
insufficiency of the land to accommodate both, and then joining
to that the latter clause of v. 11, which says that "they separa-
ted themselves the one from the other," and the first two clauses
of v. 12, which tell that "Abram dwelled in the land of Canaan,
and Lot dwelled in the cities of the plain." The last clause,
"and pitched his tent toward Sodom," then follows in connexion
with the clause of v. 11, which says, that "Lot journeyed east."
It is plain that this combination of clauses is rendered possible
by the nature of the grammatical connection of the clauses of a
Hebrew narrative, each being a short sentence usually joined by
a copulative, and by the style of copious repetition in parallel
clauses. Such a possibility of forming two narratives out of
one would have much more weight in the case of one of our
Western languages, than it has in the Biblical history, which is
constructed in such a manner as to render it comparatively easy
to effect a partition of this kind. But then by this partition the
cause of the separation between Abraham and Lot, as assigned by
the Jehovist, is an unexplained strife between the herdsmen, and
the subjoined mention that the Canaanite and Perizzite were then
422
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
dwelling in the land is a mere unmeaning repetition from the pre-
ceding chapter. But in the undivided narrative this comes in as
helping to account for the separation: there was want of room for
both, and the herdsmen were consequently at variance, and the
circumstance that rendered the want of room most pressing, was
the occupation of the same country by the Canaanites and Periz-
zites. Moreover in v. 8 Abram adverts not merely to a quarrel
between the herdsmen, but to some cause of strife between Lot
and himself, which is left unexplained by the proposed partition.
We may now advert to the use of the name Jehovah in these
passages, remarking in the first place that the LXX. are by no
means in agreement with the Hebrew text. Thus in xii. 17 it
is eòs that plagues Pharaoh because of Sarai; in xiii. 10 it is
Oeòs also is spoken of as having destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah ;
and the garden of God, not of the Lord, is mentioned in the
same verse, while after Lot's separation it is God also that speaks
to Abram. At the outset of the history of Abraham it seems to
have been thought desirable to attribute the call to the land of
Canaan to Jehovah, and to represent Abraham's first worship in
that land as offered to him. This would tend to identify the newly
introduced or revived name Jehovah with the God that called
the Patriarch, and whom he worshipped. When it is said twice
in the twelfth, and twice in the thirteenth chapters, that Abram
built an altar unto Jehovah, or called on the name of Jehovah,
it is by no means asserted that it was under this name that he
worshipped him; it may only mean, as already shown, that by
whatever name he called him, it was in fact Jehovah to whom
he built the altar, and whom he worshipped; as when in ch.
xxi. 33 he invoked the name of Jehovah, El-Olam, this latter
expression being the name by which he called Jehovah on that
occasion. But whatever may have been the case in regard to
the use of this name by Abraham totidem literis, it is quite
plain that it was the writer's object to bring Abraham from the
outset into special relation to Jehovah, as his tutelary God, and
the object of his worship. Hence, in these sections, it is Je-
CH. XIV.
423
hovah that calls him, Jehovah that appears to him, to whom he
builds an altar localising his worship, and renewing it when
he returns to the same place after his visit to Egypt. It is
Jehovah that plagues Pharaoh on account of him, and that
promises him a second time the inheritance of the entire land.
The Jehovistic usus thus prevailing in the writer's mind must
have occasioned the choice of Jehovah, in preference to Elohim,
in the comparison of the plain of Jordan to a garden of Jehovah,
and the character of the men of Sodom as sinners against Je-
hovah. It may be observed that the word used for the destruc-
tion of Sodom is that which is used for the destruction of all
flesh in the Elohistic parts of the history of the deluge, vi. 13,
17, ix. 11, 15.¹ Had it been used here in a non-Jehovistic con-
nexion, doubtless it would have been insisted on as an evidence of
Elohistic authorship. The explanation of "the garden of Je-
hovah," by a reference to Gen. ii. 10, is unsatisfactory. The
name there being Jehovah Elohim, the reference might account
for the double name, had it been used here; but it no more
accounts for Jehovah by itself, than it would for Elohim, had
that been used here instead of Jehovah.
+
§. 4. CH. XIV. THE WAR OF THE KINGS. JEHOVISTIC IN ONE
INSTANCE, WITH EL-ELION.
THIS passage is complete in itself, containing an account of
the circumstances which led to the war of the kings, to trace
which it goes back a few years, and describing Abram's pursuit
and slaughter of the four kings, and the interview with Mel-
chizedek on his return. But though the passage is complete in
itself, and at the commencement goes back a few years, it yet
occupies its proper place in this history of the events of Abra-
ham's life, and connects itself with the preceding passage, not
only grammatically, but also by the circumstance that when
-
1 Even on the supposition that the partitionists are correct in their views, the
destruction of Sodom is not an event related exclusively by the Jehovist. It is also
described, though briefly, in the Elohistic verse xix. 29, where we have the same
verb to express the destruction.
424
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
Abram's assistance is sought, it is at Mamre he is found, the last
chapter having closed with the mention of his settlement there;
and so is Lot also dwelling at Sodom. It must be observed
with reference to the mention of Abram as the Hebrew, that
this is not to be regarded as an indication that the author of this
passage mentions him now for the first time. The expression,
as already shown, is used by the writer in the subjectivity of the
man who had escaped and told Abram of what had happened.
To such a person Abram was a stranger, only lately settled in
this place; and whether the designation, "the Hebrew," was used
in a gentile sense, or to denote that he was a stranger who had
recently migrated into this country, as it is understood by the
LXX., who render it by T Teρáτy, in either case one of the
natives of the country would naturally, in thinking or speaking
of him, add some such descriptive addition. Dean Stanley,
"Jewish Church," like some other critics, treats this chapter
as a document derived from some lost history of an earlier date
than that of the present book of Genesis. The principal ground
of this supposition is the frequent introduction of explanatory
clauses. There are no less than seven such clauses, explanatory
of the names of places; as if the writer, in adopting the docu-
ment, had felt it necessary to give the modern representatives
of these antiquated names. On a close examination, however,
of these explanatory clauses, they do not appear so remarkable
as at first sight. One of them, namely the second explanation
of Bela in v. 8, may fairly be ascribed to the copyists. It was
first accidentally repeated from v. 2, and afterwards supersti-
tiously retained. There would else have been as good reason to
repeat the explanation of the vale of Siddim in the same verse.
This accidental repetition must, however, have been prior to the
translation by the LXX. Then the explanation of El-paran,
"which is by the wilderness," in v. 6, and of Hobah, "which is
on the left of Damascus," in v. 15, is different in form from the
others, and being a relative clause appears in each case as a
substantive part of the original document. Further, we have
CH. XIV.
425
in this chapter two Shavehs, and if the latter, in v. 17, had been
left without the subjoined clause, it would have been confounded
with the Shaveh Kiriathaim of v. 5, from which it is now dis-
tinguished. This clause is therefore to be regarded as à primâ
manu also. There are now four of these clauses accounted for.
Of the remaining three, the first, "Bela, that is Zoar," would
come quite naturally from the original writer, if the same as the
author of ch. xix. Having in his mind the more recent name,
which he intended afterwards to explain, in using the superseded
name which the place bore at the time of the events he was
describing, it was to be expected that he would identify it with
the more recent. Explaining this name, he would quite as
naturally explain also the vale of Siddim, immediately connected
with it both locally and in the writer's narrative. And then
the fact that he was explaining these names would of itself have
led him to explain En-Mishpat, if it had seemed to require it.
It is possible, therefore, that it was quite accidentally this
passage happened to be thus characterised. At any rate, the
supposition, that this and other such documentary materials
were made use of, is quite as compatible with the Mosaic, as
with any other authorship of the book. Even if this chapter
had been taken bodily into the present book, the author used
his discrimination in introducing it, just after he had brought
Abram to the plain of Mamre, where he is found in the present
chapter. The previous mention of Mamre made no explanation
of the name. It is here mentioned that the plain was called
after Mamre the Amorite, the brother of Eschol and Aner who
were confederate with Abram. The description of Lot as
Abram's brother's son is quite in accordance with the entire
book, which continually repeats the relationship of well-known
persons to others, as in this very chapter in the case of Lot,
v. 16. Dean Stanley adduces the differences in the rendering
of the LXX., as "variations which may be regarded, if not as
the original account of the matter, at least as explanations and
traditions of high antiquity." He refers in particular to
426
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
for
v. 16, where the LXX. have тην ππоν instead of "the goods,"
as if they read in the Hebrew
. But this is a
variation only in the vowel points, which is also partly the cause
of the difference in some of the proper names, similar consonants
being also in some instances misread, as particularly likely to
happen in the case of names not otherwise known.1
It is to be observed that if this fourteenth chapter has been
transferred bodily and without alteration from an ancient source
into the present book, the use of the name Jehovah in it is more
ancient than agrees with the theories that have been founded on
the various usage in respect to the names of God in this book of
Genesis. The passage does not use the word Elohim at all, but
has the shorter form El with the addition Elion, Melchizedek being
the priest of El-Elion. This designation doubtless represents the
name under which God was worshipped by Melchizedek and his
people, as well as by the king of Sodom as may be gathered
from v. 22. Abram says to him, "I have lift up mine hand to
Jehovah, El-Elion," thus intimating in an assumptive form that
his God, designated by the name Jehovah, was the same as that
of Melchizedek and the king of Sodom. The general form El
appears to have been commonly rendered specific by the addition
of an epithet, and so converted into a proper name, as in El-
Olam, El-Bethel, El-Shaddai, and here El-Elion. This latter
name thus recognised by Abram, and the appellative Elion by
itself, was not shunned by the Hebrews; but Elion seems to
have become a generic term for deity both in the singular and
plural, and in the masculine and feminine, amongst the Phœ-
nicians, and thus appears in the celebrated Punic verses con-
tained in the Pœnulus of Plautus, which commence with the
words, N'yth Alonim walonuth, which, according to Bochart,
1 Dean Stanley, p. 46 note, says that "Jerome, Epist. ad Evangelum, § 6, justly
remarks that the narrative leaves it ambiguous whether Abraham gave tithes to Mel-
chizedek or Melchizedek to Abraham." He has not explained wherein the justness
of the remark consists. Grammatically it is indeed ambiguous, but otherwise not.
Plainly it was of the spoils of which Abram refused to have any, that the tithes were
given, and Abram's refusal to have any plainly shows that it was to Melchizedek the
tenth was given. The LXX. make it to Abram, but this was possibly owing to
national prejudice.
CH. XIV.
427
I pray" נא את עליונים ועליונות,would be in Hebrew letters
the gods and goddesses." Scaliger quotes Philo Byblius as an
authority that the Phoenicians called a deity Elion, and explains
by this means the name of Abdalonim, the king of Tyre who
was conquered by Alexander the Great.¹
In this passage the name Jehovah is confined to Abram,
the name El-Elion being that employed by Melchizedek and
the king of Sodom. This is in accordance with the writer's
usual practice never to put the name Jehovah except for a special
reason into the mouth of any but one of the chosen race. The
LXX. agree with the Hebrew in this place.
It is in this chapter that the mention is made of Dan, on
which there has been grounded so much argument as an indication
of the late origin of this book. No allowance is made by the
objectors for the possibility of another Dan only known to the
author of this book, the Dan known in later times being at this
period known as Laish. Yet the name probably forms a part of
the name of the River Jordan, which near one of its sources is
at the present day called El Dhan, according to Burckhardt.
Hengstenberg's supposition, that Danjaan mentioned in 2 Sam.
xxiv. 6 is the Dan of Genesis xiv., is not so contemptible as
some represent it to be. The invariable use of the simple Dan
in every place where Laish is meant, and its occurrence twice
in that chapter, would seem to show that the addition was in
this case made for distinction. Had that place been in exis-
tence in the time of the Patriarchs, it would probably have been
called simply Dan without the addition, as Laish was the name
of the other Dan until after the times of the Pentateuch. This
latter, having subsequently become the more important Dan to
1 'Ελιοῦν Phænicibus Deus vocabatur, ut docet Philo Bibliensis. Κατὰ τούτους
γίνεταί τις Ἐλιοῦν καλούμενος, καὶ θηλεία λεγομένη Βηρούθ. Omnino quemvis
suorum Cœlitum ita vocabant: ut in Pænulo Fthalonim, walonuth, hoc est ins
nii, Superos, superasque. Et Sisenna ad illum locum notaverat Alon linguâ
Panicâ esse, Deum. Sic Rex Tyri, quem expugnavit Alexander, vocabatur Abda-
lonim, ''-, quem Arrianus Azelmilkum vocat. De Emend. Temporum.
Not. in Fragm., p. 30.
428
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
an Israelite, would take the name simply, and the older Dan
would then have required the distinctive addition.¹
2
The fourteenth chapter is assigned to the Jehovist in David-
son's table of authors. But the Bishop of Natal attributes it to
a writer whom he calls the second Jehovist, while Boehmer gives
it to the second or junior Elohist, of whom they speak, with the
exception of the offering of the tithes v. 20, which he gives to
the compiler or Redactor, as inconsistent with Abram's oath not
to take anything for himself, on the assumption of course that it
was to Abram the tithes were given. The compiler must have
been as well able to perceive this inconsistency as any one else,
if it had any existence, which few perhaps will think it has. The
Bishop's remark, that "the use of the Divine name, ‘El most
high,' four times, and of the peculiar designation, 'Proprietor
of heaven and earth" twice, of which the former occurs no more
in the Pentateuch, and the latter no more in the Bible, is a
strong indication that the writer of this chapter has not been
very much concerned in the composition of the Pentateuch,” is
especially weak. He does not perceive that the writer does not
present these titles as his own, but as belonging to a particular
local cultus which does not re-appear in the history, and that of
the four repetitions of El-Elion, the first is the narrator's, des-
cribing the office of Melchizedek according to this local worship,
two are the words of Melchizedek himself, and the fourth of
Abram in reply, who identifies his God, Jehovah, with this El-
Elion of Melchizedek. The other title, "Lord of heaven and
earth," appears first in Melchizedek's words, and then is repeated
in Abram's reply, and is not used by the historian in his own
1 The mention of Dan in Deut. xxxiv. 1, does not present the same difficulty, as
this is in one of the parts of that book, that in any case must have been written at a
later period. On the subject of the composition of that book, as a series of documents
in which Moses speaks in the first person, introduced by prefatory remarks and
followed by similar notices-always by the first and sometimes by both,-in which he
is spoken of in the third person, a circumstance indicating a different authorship for
these parts, a reference to the excellent work of the "Layman," Mosaic Origin of
the Pentateuch, will reward the reader, as indeed will all that that author says
on the Book of Deuteronomy.
2 Bishop of Natal, Pt. v. Crit. Anal. p. 49-55.
CH. XV.-XVI. 2.
429
person at all. The numbers therefore on which he lays so much
stress are quite irrelevant to the question at issue. But where
the partitionists are so much divided amongst themselves, the
advocates of the traditionary view may well rest satisfied until
they have agreed amongst themselves.
§ 5. CH. XV.-xvi. 2. THE PROMISE OF A SON NOTWITHSTANDING
ABRAHAM'S COMPLAINT OF CHILDLESSNESS. JEHOVISTIC.
THE reasons for connecting the two first verses of ch. xvi. with
this subsection have already been given, p. 330-1. The complaint
which Abram makes to God of his childlessness, and the promise
that, notwithstanding, an heir out of his own bowels should
possess the entire land, is suitably followed by the mention of
Sarai's barrenness, and the proposition made by her in conse-
quence, doubtless with a view to bring about the fulfilment
of the Divine promise, while the repetition of this matter in the
next verses, xvi. 3, 4, forms the customary preface to a new
section. This repetition, being thus in accordance with the
characteristic structure of the entire book, forms no ground for
the supposition of different authorship as regards these verses.
To the overlooking of this organic structure of the book is due
all the difficulty which the seemingly needless repetitions of the
connected narrative have caused. It is on this ground that
xvi. 2 is in Davidson's table given to the later Elohist. The
first and fourth verse being joined, as part of the Jehovistic
narrative, and 2 and 3 being neither wanted in that, nor, if
repetition is to be avoided, proper to be joined together, one is
given to the earlier, and the other to the later Elohist. Plainly
all this supposed evidence of multiplied authorship vanishes,
when the repetition is explained by the partition of sections.
Thus v. 2 goes naturally to complete the notice begun in v. 1,
and finishes that section; and v. 3 begins a new one with its
customary recapitulation, while v. 4 very naturally connects
itself with this as part of the consecutive narrative presented in
the new section thus commenced.
430
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
The entire of the fifteenth chapter is given by Kuenen to the
Jehovist, while the critics represented by Dr. Davidson give
the first verse to the Elohist, notwithstanding its containing
Jehovah, which they make no difficulty in ascribing to editorial
alteration. As part of the separated Elohistic narrative it would
stand, however, wholly unconnected with anything preceding
or following, while xv. 2 would be a most abrupt and im-
probable commencement of this part of the Jehovist's narrative.
Hence it is plain that v. 1 stands in its proper place as part of
the original connected history, notwithstanding that it gives a
vision to the Jehovist, the Elohist being supposed to have all
the visions, by that kind of assumption which creates a charac-
teristic, and then judges by means of it. The Bishop of Natal,
however, gives this fifteenth chapter to his Deuteronomist, while
others give it to the second Elohist with the exception of
v. 3, and 12-17, which they assign to the compiler. The
Bishop says it cannot belong to the Elohist, as he gives an
account of a similar covenant to that here recorded, without any
reference to this, in ch. xvii., while it cannot belong to the Je-
hovist, as the statement that " Jehovah brought out Abram from
Ur of the Chaldees" agrees neither with the statement of the
Elohist, that it was Terah brought him with him to Haran, and
that then Abram went to Canaan of his own accord, nor with
that of the Jehovist who makes the call of Abram to have been
first given in Haran. The Elohistic statement that Abram went
of his own accord to the land of Canaan is entirely a creation of
the partitionists themselves, and cannot therefore be used in
proof of the correctness of these subdivisions. That Terah
originally left Ur without a divine command is founded only on
negative evidence; but the statement in xv. 7 implies no more
than that Jehovah, who had by a special call brought him to
Canaan, had providentially brought him originally from Ur of
the Chaldees with this intent. The formula, "the word of the
Lord came to Abram," on which he relies, as different from the
other Jehovistic introductions of divine communications, is
CH. XVI. 3-15.
431
owing to the disposition for alliteration and play on sounds and
double senses so common in the entire book: "After these
things (77) was a word (77) of Jehovah.” The in-
definiteness of the phrase, “after these things," is quite imagi-
nary. It is definite enough for all the purposes of the narrative,
while few will think the absence of the phrase, "it came to pass,
which elsewhere precedes this expression, of much weight. The
reasons which the Bishop gives for the chapter being written by
the author of the main parts of Deuteronomy only tend to con-
nect these with this book of Genesis, which we are not concerned
to deny; nor need we dispute his arguments in proof that the
entire chapter has proceeded from one pen against those who
would subject it to the same process of subdivision applied to
other parts. The objection which the Bishop draws from the
similarity of the covenant here mentioned with that described
in ch. xvii. may be deferred till we come to that passage.
The name Jehovah prevails throughout, while Abram in
addressing him prefixes the title Adonai, which he uses by itself
in ch. xviii. Jehovah never appears in this book in the voca-
tive by itself, but always has an added name or clause. The
LXX. agree with the Hebrew generally as to the use of Jehovah,
but in v. 6 and 7 it is in God Abram is said to have believed,
and God who says to him that he had brought him out of Ur of
the Chaldees.
در
§ 6. CH. xvi. 3-15. ABRAHAM'S UNION WITH HAGAR, HER FLIGHT,
AND THE BIRTH OF ISHMAEL. JEHOVISTIC WITH EL.
We have seen the propriety of making this lesser section
begin with v. 3, and shown how is thus extinguished all the
1 Another instance occurs presently after in v. 2, pp in D'a prible.
2 The Adonai Jehovah here is remarked by some as peculiar, and similar to the
Jehovah Elohim of ch. ii. and iii. There, however, the expression is the writer's,
but not put into the mouth of the interlocutors. Here the expression is not used by
the writer in his own person, but put as a title of reverence into the mouth of the
Patriarch. But even so, the combination helps to carry out an apparent design
already noticed, to identify Jehovah successively with every other prevalent title not
rejected from Hebrew use.
432
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
imagined necessity of supposing a compilation here from different
authors on the ground of needless repetition. The supposition that
v. 2 belongs to a third author, and which connects v. 1 with v. 4,
makes a very bald transition from the first to the second of these
latter verses.
"Abram's wife bare him no children; and she
had an handmaid, an Egyptian, whose name was Hagar. And
he went in unto Hagar," etc." This would make one suppose
that the connexion was secret, or at least casual; yet in the next
verse we have Sarai referring to her having given her maid into
Abram's bosom. Plainly v. 2 would be necessary to give the
requisite completeness to this narrative, and then v. 3 comes in
as the introductory recapitulation of 1 and 2, at the commence-
ment of a new section. The connexion between 3 and 4 is quite
natural and simple: Sarai gave Hagar to her husband Abram
to be his wife,¹ and he went in unto her and she conceived. The
first clause of v. 15, “Hagar bare Abram a son," is assigned by
Davidson's table to the Redactor, as added by him to complete
the Jehovistic part which ends at v. 14, according to these
writers. But others give the entire of 15, 16 to the Elohist.
This indeed would seem necessary on their hypothesis, as by
connecting the remainder of v. 15 with v. 13 we have the birth
of a son assumed, without any mention that Hagar had conceived
or borne one. Plainly the entire of v. 15 stands as the completion
of the previous narrative: the angel had informed Hagar that
she was with child and should bear a son whom she should call
Ishmael; and now this is fulfilled, she bears a son, and Abram
calls him Ishmael.
Throughout this passage God is Jehovah, except in the mouth
of Hagar the Egyptian. He is only El when she speaks, and
she calls the name of Jehovah that spake to her, El-roi: "Thou
art El-roi."2 This is in accordance with the author's usual
is. This is
1 Here again is the alliterative tendency exemplified:
thought to be Elohistic. The last instances noted were Jehovistic.
2 If El were here the vocative, as in the English Version, it would probably have
the vocative prefix ". Besides Roi (7) in this name is not a verb. The meaning
is, "Thou art a God of seeing,"-" of vision," or "of being seen," as Fuerst translates.
In the name of the well perhaps it is a participle T.
CH. XVI. 16-XVII. 1-23.
433
custom as regards those who are not of the chosen race; but at
the same time care is taken to identify Jehovah with this God,
El-roi, and with the El which forms part of the name Ishmael
to be given to her son because Jehovah heard her. The LXX.
have God, not "Jehovah, judge between me and thee," in v. 5.
Otherwise they agree with the Hebrew.
§. 7. CH. xvi. 16—xvii. 1–23. THE COVENANT OF CIRCUMCISION.
ELOHISTIC WITH JEHOVAH ONCE.
Ir was shown that the preceding section properly took up the
fifteenth verse of xvi. as the completion of that narrative, setting
forth the fulfilment of the angel's promise that Hagar should
bear a son, and should call his name Ishmael. The sixteenth
verse is not required to complete that story. Verse 3 had suffi-
ciently indicated in connexion with xii. 4 what was the age of
Abram at Ishmael's birth. There was no need therefore of
repeating his age in that section any more than the circumstance
of Ishmael's birth. But as an introduction to the next section,
v. 16 falls in with the usual custom of the writer, who now repeats
the age of Abraham at the time of Ishmael's birth, and then
proceeds to tell his age at the next event to be narrated. The
connecting of these two verses, xvi. 16 and xvii. 1, thus gives
to this section Ishmael's as well as Abraham's age at the time of
their circumcision, the subsequent statement of their ages in
xvii. 24, 25 belonging to the ensuing section, as already shown.
Having identified Jehovah with the Elohim of the antedi-
luvian world, set him forth as the Elohim of Shem, as the caller
and the great object of worship of Abraham, as one with the El-
Elion of the worshippers of the true God in the land of Canaan,
and with Adonai, as the God from whom Ishmael took his name,
and whom Hagar worshipped as El-roi, the author now proceeds,
in accordance with a design that has been already indicated, to
represent Jehovah as manifesting himself under the most impor-
tant and significant of those designations, one, in the character of
which, according to the authority of Exod. vi. 3, he was specially
28
434
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
known to the Patriarchs. Hence we read that "Jehovah appeared
to Abram, and said unto him, I am El-Shaddai." To the Elohistic
character of the sequel we shall presently advert, but must first
observe that it is the most arbitrary and unwarrantable assump-
tion, on the ground of that succeeding Elohism, to assert that the
Jehovah of v. 1 is due to an alteration of the original Elohist's
narrative. Kuenen indeed, p. 140, admits that Exod. vi. 2, 3
does not necessitate the supposition that the Elohist never
used the name Jehovah in the narrative part of his writing.
But he thinks that, as an exception to a rule otherwise followed
universally, the use in this instance would justify the supposi-
tion by which it has been sought to account for the existence
of Jehovah in xvii. 1. But the existence of this otherwise
universal rule is itself the great subject in dispute, and all
depends upon the previous proof that such an Elohist, as dis-
tinguished from the writer of the other parts, ever existed.
Moreover, it has been shown just now, as well as in the discus-
sion of the general structure of the book, that the commencement
of this section is at xvi. 16, and the repetition which this verse
makes of the particulars just stated in the preceding Jehovistic
narrative connects the sequel with that preceding passage, and
it is quite natural as a matter of course, and in sequence with
it, that Jehovah now appears as the name of the Divine being
who manifests himself to Abram under the name of El-Shaddai.
It is true, however, that El-Shaddai, standing in a certain
contrast as a name, though identified in person with Jehovah,
is verbally, and by its general association of thought, closely con-
nected with Elohim, and would naturally suggest its use. The
Elohism in the present section is partly due to this. As the
writer speaking historically, and in his own person, never uses
either El, or El with an addition like Shaddai, but only puts it
into the mouth of those whose words he records, he substitutes
the kindred Elohim in this chapter when speaking in his own
person. But it is only in part that the Elohism is due to this
cause. In two places, 7 and 8, "to be a God unto thee,"
CH. XVI. 16-XVII. 1–23.
435
and "I will be their God," no other word but Elohim would
have been proper, and it would have been used whether the
name Elohim or Jehovah was used in the other places. The
real Elohism therefore in this passage is simply that we have
"God said," four times, "God talked," "God went," and "said
unto God," each once. All these follow as a matter of course,
from the first adoption of Elohim in the narrative part in con-
nexion with the El-Shaddai of v. 1. The passage is therefore
far from showing any Elohistic peculiarity in this respect. The
first Elohim having followed from the El-Shaddai in v. 1, its use
in the subsequent parts would have been rendered more likely
by the necessary use of it in the next two instances in 7 and 8;
and thus a prevailing Elohism came to characterise the passage.
The LXX. agree with the Hebrew reading both in the Je-
hovah of v. 1 and in the Elohim of the subsequent part. But
they read for El-Shaddai ó cós σov. Similarly through the entire
book, wherever this combination occurs they have "my God,"
or "your God," according to the occasion. And in Exod. vi. 3
they represent it by leòs av auT@v. This mode of rendering,
however, they do not afterwards adopt, and it therefore suggests
a various reading in the instances where it is adopted, of which
there is however no other evidence.¹
The great blessings promised in this chapter are treated by
the partitionists as the Elohistic version of the promise and
blessing related by the Jehovist in xii. 1-3, and there stated to
have been given twenty-four years earlier. The blessings are
by no means the same; this has not in it an element, which was
in the earlier one, and which re-appears in xviii. 18, namely that
Abraham should be a blessing to all the kindreds of the earth.2
1 Possibly at first it had become instead of 7, in some places where it is now
rendered "My God," through the similarity of and, the Alexandrian translators
not being likely to have been struck by the late form of the pronominal genitive.
This might have become their guide then for other places.
24.
2 The blessing to Abraham in xii. 1-3, that in him should all the families of the
earth (lit. the ground) be blessed, is noted as having the Jehovistic preference of
ground (7) to "earth." Colenso, I't. v. Crit. Anal. p. 44. But in fact
it was not any preference for one of these words above the other that determined
the choice there. Abram had just been bid to go to a land (?) that Jehovah would
436
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
The blessing connected with the covenant of circumcision was
local, and had reference to Abraham's own natural progeny.
That of xii. 1-3 had in view the whole human race. The
blessing pronounced in this chapter on Abraham, moreover, was
accompanied by a special rite, namely circumcision, and by a
change of name, while nothing of this kind is to be found in the
previous blessing.
The blessing here pronounced by Jehovah in the character
of El-Shaddai on Abraham included Isaac expressly: "But my
covenant will I establish with Isaac," v. 21. It was renewed in
the same character of El-Shaddai to Jacob in xxxv. 9-15, with a
like change of name as in Abraham's case, and with similar pro-
mises of nations and kings to spring from him, and of the inheri-
tance of the land already promised to Abraham and to Isaac.
These passages, and the manifest reference to them in Exod. vi.,
have been regarded as the main pillars of the whole theory
of the partitionists. Kuenen, p. 30, speaks of the recognition
of their Elohistic authorship as a discovery enlarging our
knowledge of the Elohistic characteristics. That xxxv. 9-15
follows xvii., and that Exod. vi. refers to both, is clear, and is
what no one need care to deny. The resemblances in each suc-
cessive one of these passages to the preceding are evidently
designed, and are not therefore the spontaneous and unconscious
indications of a style and habit of thinking distinguishing the
writer from the author of other parts, save as they may have
that force in ch. xvii. considered by itself. Neither does Exod.
vi. prove that the author had not previously used the name Je-
hovah, as he plainly does in xvii. 1 except by its violent
removal from its place merely to suit the purposes of a theory.
show him. Had been used immediately after in the expression, "kindreds of
the earth," it would have been understood only of the same land, and the blessing
would have seemed limited to the kindreds of the land of Canaan. Hence the word
is changed, and one adopted which would denote the whole human race. But after-
wards, where this universal blessing to be derived through Abraham is referred to in
the equally Jehovistic connexion xviii. 18, but, where the same danger of mistake from
the context did not exist, we have a. The same reason, which caused the
expression, "kindreds of the ground," in xii. 1-3, has also caused it in xxviii. 14.
TT
CH. XVI. 16-XVII. 1-23.
437
The importance, however, attached to the Elohistic style attri-
buted to this passage makes it well to consider the principal
evidences of it here.¹ (1.) The shorter form of the pronoun I,
which is used by both the supposed principal writers, will be
considered in a general examination of these peculiarities. (2.)
El-Shaddai is used here and in other Elohistic connexions.
In xxviii. 3, xxxv. 11, xlviii. 3, and Ex. vi. 3, this present
passage is either itself quoted, or its quotation successively
carried on.
The title is also admitted to exist in two Jehovistic
passages, xliii. 14, xlix. 25. (3.) Abraham is exhorted to be
(C
perfect," and "Noah was perfect," vi. 9. One is tempted
to say, There is a river in Macedon and a river in Monmouth.
(4.) The phrases give and establish a covenant, as in ch. ix.,
are relied on as special Elohistic tokens, the Jehovist using
the word cut. This latter expression we have shown to be
proper when a covenant is made with sacrifice, as in Gen. xv.,
and therefore it is used in that chapter. To give, establish
(lit. cause to arise), a covenant is also a manner of speak-
ing proper in the case of a superior granting the privilege of a
covenant to an inferior, as here and in Gen. ix. These expres-
sions would be unsuitable as between equals, and therefore the
other phrase is used in xxvi. 28 and xxxi. 44. The expressions
are properly used in their several places according to the cir-
cumstances, without reference to the question of their separate
Jehovistic or Elohistic origin. (5.) To speak with, the preposi-
tion being, is used three times. It occurs elsewhere in
passages of both kinds, the only reason for making it Elohistic
being the relative proportion of its occurrences. (6.) The com-
bination of the words " fructify and multiply," as used in Gen. i.
and in the history of Noah, is also relied on with great confidence.
The combination in viii. and ix. is simply borrowed from ch. i.
In this chapter, both in the blessing of Abraham and of Ishmael,
the two words are used, though in the case of Abraham they are.
separated. In xxviii. 3, xxxv. 11, xlviii. 4, they are simply adopted
¹ Bishop of Natal, Pt. v., Crit. Anal.,
Crit. Anal., p. 68–70.
---
438
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
from their occurrence in ch. xvii. The only independent use of the
combination elsewhere is in xlvii. 27. There are therefore only
three independent instances, viz., in Gen. i., xvii., and xlvii.
(7.) The indirect derivation implied in the change of Abram's
name to Abraham is relied on as Elohistic. It is not easy to
is given as the
see whether the Bishop thinks that
derivation of Abraham, or only an explanation of it. This way
of explaining words, however, is common in both Jehovistic and
Elohistic parts. It is just like that ascribed to the Jehovist in v. 29,
where Noah's name is explained. Abraham has its proper deriva-
tion from "a multitude," a word still subsisting in Arabic,
as will be seen in the Lexicons. The consistent use of Abram and
Sarai in the Jehovistic passages preceding this chapter, has caused
great perplexity to those who regard the Jehovist as an inde-
pendent historian, and not as merely supplementing the Elohist.
(8.) "Kings shall go forth out of thy loins," in xxxv. 11, is
simply borrowed from this. "Souls that went forth out of his
thigh," in xlvi. 23, adds no significance to this instance. (9.)
"The land of thy sojournings," in xxviii. 4, xxxv. 12, and
Ex. vi. 4, is merely copied from this place. The expression
in xxxvi. 7, xxxvii. 1, may be also taken from this, but its ascrip-
tion in those passages to the Elohist is quite arbitrary. The
years" and "days" of their sojournings in xlvii. 9 are quite
different phrases. (10.) The word, for "possession,"
which begins to be used here, re-appears again in several places.
In xlviii. 4 it is only borrowed from this. In xxiii., the Elo-
histic appropriation of which is quite arbitrary, Abraham seeks
(6
(C
a possession of a burying place," and that expression, according
to the legal character of the entire piece, is repeated in v. 9 and
20, and is simply copied in 1. 13. In xxxvi. 43, "the land of
their possession," stands in contrast with "the land of his father's
sojournings," in xxxvii. 1. Both may be derived from ch. xvii.;
at any rate, the Elohistic origin of these verses, is hypothetical,
being partly grounded on the use of these phrases. Only xlvii.
11 remains as an independent instance, and whether it is in
רָהָם
CH. XVI. 16-XVII. 1–23.
439
(C
an Elohistic or Jehovistic connexion, it affects the argument
but little. (11.) The use of the Hiphilin for "beget,"
has been already noticed. (12.) The expression, "bone of that
day," for self-same day, occurs previously in vii. 13, and twice
in this chapter, 23 and 26. But it has already been shown,
that the latter place belongs to the succeeding Jehovistic section,
as part of the recapitulatory preface prefixed to it. Moreover
the phrase was in common use, and though an idiom, was not
peculiar, as it appears in English to be. Dr. Kay, Cris. Hupf.,
p. 36, justly animadverts on this and like literal translations of
idiomatic expressions. (13.) The word in, "with him," used
it is alleged as an expletive, is also relied on. This form is not an
expletive in any of the passages referred to in the history of the
deluge, except perhaps ix. 8. In the other cases it is needed
to complete the sense, except in ix. 10, where "with thee" is
explained by the creatures that went out of the ark. In xi. 31,
They went forth with them," the expression, "with them," is
indeed expletive, but quite different from the instances that have
been referred to. There it is equivalent to our phrase, "they went
forth with themselves." In xlvi. 6, 7 the expression, "with
him," may be regarded as a needless addition; but whether so
or not, the phrase in xvii. 27 is not unnecessary. It implies that
all the men of Abraham's house were not merely circumcised,
but circumcised simultaneously with himself. Moreover this is
connected with the succeeding Jehovistic passage.
曼
​¿
These evidences of a differentiating Elohistic character will
now show how little ground the partitionists have to rely on
the vaunted discovery, which they regard the Elohistic origin of
this passage to be, or to treat it as one of "the main pillars"
of their theories. Perhaps after the examination that has now
been made of these evidences, the reader may feel more con-
fidence as we proceed.
440
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
1
§ 8. CH. xvii. 24-xix. 28. VISIT OF THE THREE ANGELS TO ABRAHAM,
HIS INTERCESSION FOR THE CITIES OF THE PLAIN AND THEIR
JEHOVISTIC WITH ADONAI.
DESTRUCTION.
THE reasons have already been assigned for making this
section to commence with the concluding verses of ch. xvii.
The absence of the name of Abraham from xviii. 1-5,¹ and the
use of a pronoun instead, suggests some previous mention of
the Patriarch's name, while yet the subject matter separates
this passage from the preceding one in its main particulars.
But the otherwise unexplained repetition at the close of ch. xvii.,
supplying the prefatory matter to this according to the practice
of the writer, contains the name; and the connexion of what it
relates of the circumcising of Abraham and his household with
the new section is, that his obedience in thus entering into the
divine covenant by this newly appointed rite is followed by a
renewed promise of the birth of a son and other signal favours
from Jehovah. The Elohistic ch. xvii. is thus connected in the
closest relationship with the Jehovistic xviii. though they are
separated both in subject matter and as different sections, and
distinguished by a different usus as to God's name.2
Though this is a lengthened passage, containing several im-
portant matters, one of which at any rate, the visit of the three
men at the first to Abraham, has nothing to do with the sequel,
yet the whole is so closely connected in its form that it cannot
be separated into very distinctly marked sections.
It has,
however, certain rests and stages in its progress; first comes
the visit to Abraham, and the promise of the birth of Isaac,
then the intercession for the cities of the plain, and lastly the
1 This has caused much perplexity to the partitionists. Bp. of Natal, Pt. v. Crit.
Anal. p. 70-1. The Bishop sees the necessity of connecting with xvii. 24-27 this
commencing verse of xviii., but according to his theory supposes that the Jehovist
merely supplemented the previous narrative. The division of the sections as exhibited
above removes all the difficulty.
2 The latter verses of ch. xvii., receiving a Jehovistic connexion as the preface to
xviii., present us then with a Jehovistic use of the expression noted as an Elohistic
peculiarity to denote the self-same day, viz., "in the bone of that day." It will
mean here the day on which Abraham was ninety years old and nine.
CH. XVII. 24-XIX. 28.
441
visit of the angels to Lot, and the destruction of Sodom and
Gomorrah.
And first, as to the visit of the three men to Abraham, we are
told here, as in the last manifestation, that Jehovah appeared
unto him; and it is plain that this appearance was made through
one or more of the three men that came to him-three real hu-
man visitors as Abraham no doubt at the first supposed. There
is therefore no reason for thinking that he used the address
"Adonai" at the first, except as he would have used it to his fellow
men, though the Masoretic punctuation is the same here as when
it is applied to God. The narrative makes it probable that only
one of these strangers was the Divine Being himself; for we read,
v. 22, that "the men turned their faces and went toward Sodom,
but Abraham stood yet before Jehovah," and then in xix. 1 we
read that "the two angels,"¹ not as in the English Version "two
angels" indefinitely, came to Sodom. At any rate we cannot
doubt that it was intended by the writer to imply that by this
time, and at this second stage of the events recorded, Abraham
had become aware he was conversing with a Divine manifesta-
tion. But though the writer calls this Divine person Jehovah,
the Patriarch speaks of him all through as Adonai. It seems
to have been in the following out of the design already noticed,
to identify the name Jehovah in the course of the history with
all the other designations of the Godhead, that this is done. In
the Adonai Jehovah of ch. xv. the word was used rather as a
prefix of respect; now it appears as a substantive title applied
to Jehovah, just as in the last chapter Jehovah was identified
with El-Shaddai, and previously with other titles and designa-
tions, and as we shall further observe it to be in the sequel. The
conversation in which Abraham pleads for the cities of the plain
is marked by several peculiarities, besides the expressions which
are supposed to characterise the Jehovist's manner of speaking.
Amongst the Jehovistic forms which the Bishop of Natal has
noticed, may be instanced the use of the word y for propter,
1
שְׁנֵי הַמַּלְאָכִים
442
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
and N, fortasse.¹ This latter is repeated several times, the
former more than once; but the repetition in a recurring form, as
here, is only equivalent to a single instance. It has been already
observed that there are in this book several instances of passages,
on which the writer has exercised his skill in giving them a
peculiar artificial form, whereby they stand out as distinct
from the rest of the narrative. The commencing passage, with
its heptameral subdivision and its peculiar repetitions, is one.
The next passage, as already fully exhibited, is another. The
genealogies in v. and xi. may be instanced likewise, and the
blessing of Jacob's sons in ch. xlix. The present passage is also
an instance of a striking character. And it is plain that these
passages being designedly composed in a style sui generis, any
peculiarities they contain cannot justly be regarded as evidences.
of the general style, or habit of thinking or speaking, peculiar to
the writer, any more than their peculiarity of form, and
special mannerisms, should be regarded as indicating authors
different not only from each other, but also from the writer or
writers of other parts of the book. The character of some of
these passages as odes or poems, and of others as singular in-
stances which it was wished to particularise for recitation or
recollection, may account for their special form. The first of
the expressions above-mentioned occurs in iii. 17, where the
curse of the ground for man's sake is mentioned, and in viii. 21,
which adds nothing as being an evident reference to the former.
It occurs again in xii. 13, 16, and in xvii. 4, instances too few
to establish a style through so wide a range of composition.
The other word, besides here, only occurs in xvi. 2 and xxiv. 5,
instances still fewer, and is therefore no indication of style.
The Bishop of Natal, Pt. v. Crit. Anal. p. 73, says in regard
to 18, 19, that "the change to the third person in v. 19, 'that
Jehovah may bring upon Abraham what he hath spoken con-
cerning him,' seems to imply that we have here an interpola-
1 This passage has another instance of the alliterative tendency of the writer,
,"dust and ashes,” v. 27.
וָאֵפֶר
CH. XVII. 24-XIX. 28.
443
tion by a strange hand." And accordingly he assigns v. 18, 19
to the Deuteronomist. The change of person, however, could
only indicate an interpolation as regards the clauses in which
the third person appears, and is no reason for attributing the
previous clause of v. 19 and v. 18 to this strange hand. On
the contrary, if the change of person does not separate the
latter clauses of v. 19 from the previous parts of that verse and
v. 18, it does not indicate any strange hand at all. But it is of
moment to the Bishop to withdraw v. 18 from the Jehovist, in-
asmuch as it has the expression, "nations of the earth," and not
"kindreds of the ground," as in xii. 3, and xxviii. 14, the
reason for which in those places has been shown. The entire
passage (17-21) should be introduced with a pluperfect in trans-
lating, the future with the vau conversive having been dropped,
and the past form substituted, "And Jehovah had said." The
second stage of the narrative thus commenced extends to the
end of the chapter.
The third part of the section extends from the commencement
of xix. to v. 28 of that chapter. There occurs no mention of
God in it until v. 14 where the angel says that "Jehovah will
destroy this city." Then in v. 16 Jehovah is merciful to Lot;
and in v. 24 Jehovah rains fire and brimstone from Jehovah out
of heaven; and finally in the morning Abraham goes to the place
where he had stood before Jehovah, the whole history of this
event from the commencement being thus strictly Jehovistic
in the use of the Divine name by the author. This is quite in
keeping with the spirit of the narrative, in which God appears
in a bodily form, and in personal converse with Abraham; and
having in this form announced the destruction of the condemned
cities, then the same personal Jehovah rains on them fire and
brimstone from Jehovah out of heaven, while at the close the
reference to the conversation between Abraham and Jehovah
connects the whole narrative into one.
The LXX. have feòs instead of kúpios in xviii. 1, and eòs
again in the question, "Is anything too hard for Jehovah ?”
444
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
v. 14, where the idea simply of Divine power would have made
Elohim appropriate even in a Jehovistic connexion. On the
other hand they have kúpios for Adonai as well as for Jehovah.
The passage is properly closed at xix. 28, when Abraham sees
the smoke ascend as the smoke of a furnace, and a new section.
begins with a formal introduction.
§ 9. CH. xix. 29-38. LOT AND HIS DAUGHTERS. ELOHISTIC.
THE author having brought the history of the destruction of
the cities of the plain to a close, and having left Lot in Zoar
before that event, now proceeds to describe his subsequent his-
tory. To this he prefixes a recapitulatory preface, in which he
reverts to the overthrow with the customary allusive reference
to it, as usual at the commencement of sections in respect to
some previously mentioned event now specified as a note of time,
and refers to God's regard for Abraham, and to his deliverance
of Lot for Abraham's sake. He does this, perhaps, with special
reference to the misconduct about to be mentioned; it was not
for the sake of Lot, or his family, that the Divine interposition
for his deliverance was made, but only on account of God's
regard for Abraham. In this the idea of Jehovah conversing
personally with Abraham had passed from the writer's mind.
He is now only concerned with the Divine justice exercised on
the depraved cities, and the vindication of the Divine character
in delivering a family of such an evil moral disposition as it
manifested afterwards. It is true Lot himself, as compared
with the people of Sodom, was still "just Lot;" yet how low
his moral instincts must have fallen may be gathered from the
proposal he made respecting his daughters to the men of
Sodom. It is in this view of the matter, and with respect to an
implied vindication of the Divine character, that we may sup-
pose the Elohim of v. 29 to have been used. The LXX. agree
with the Hebrew in this case.
The Bishop of Natal makes all this Jehovistic, with the
CH. XIX. 22-38.
445
exception of v. 29, which the partitionists in general regard as
the Elohist's only reference to the destruction of Sodom and
Gomorrah. Surely so important an event would scarcely have
been introduced merely in this allusive way: "It came to pass
in Elohim destroying the cities of the plain, Elohim remem-
bered Abraham." Plainly this way of alluding to an important
event implies previous mention of it. After a detailed narrative
of the whole transaction it is intelligible enough; but, as the
partitionists will have it, it is very strange, abrupt, and un-
natural. But we have seen that the partitionists have been
already obliged to introduce in the Elohistic narrative the
great initial fact of the patriarchal history, the departure from
Haran, in a like allusive manner in xii. 4, last clause.
CC
9
The critics represented by Dr. Davidson give this passage
after v. 29 to the compiler, because it looks like ix. 18-27.
But the Bishop of Natal gives it to the Jehovist. Amongst
the few points on which he relies for identifying the passage
with the Jehovist's writings, one is the use of Nia, 'go
in," to denote sexual intercourse, and another the use of
"to lie," carnally, with Dy. As the Jehovist is also dis-
tinguished by T, "to know," in the same sense, and these
are the three ways of expressing that matter in Hebrew, the
Jehovist has appropriated to himself all the words expressing
it, as the Bishop has given him all mention of that act. But it
is plain all these words cannot be distinctive. Another similar
case is the use of 7 and 7 for the "elder" and
VY
"younger." But as the Jehovist has also a and 7 for the
"elder," and 1 for the "younger," the Jehovist claims all
the words for comparative ages also. The other distinctions are
still more feeble, the indications of time, "that night," the
derivation of the names Moab and Ben Ammi, or Ammon, the
paternity of the Moabites and Ammonites, which he compares
with iv. 20, 21, where, however, father is used in a figurative
sense, and not as here of natural paternity, and, lastly, the use
of the expression, "unto this day." As no one but the critics
446
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
question the Jehovist's authorship, and such marks as these can
not be distinctive of any authorship, they prove nothing of the
separate authorship of the passage.
§ 10. CH. XX.-XXI. 4 ABRAHAM AT GERAR, TILL THE BIRTH OF
ISAAC. ELOHISTIC AND JEHOVISTIC.
THE Sojourn of Abraham in the Philistines' country, extend-
ing over a considerable period, embraces several important
transactions so distinct in themselves as naturally to form
different sections of the narrative, not always very distinctly,
but still sufficiently marked at their points of separation. This
first section cannot be confined to the twentieth chapter. The
transactions connected with Sarah's removal into the house of
Abimelech, and her subsequent restoration to Abraham, will be
seen to connect themselves in the closest manner with the birth
of Isaac. While, however, it is necessary to take in the com-
mencing verses of xxi., we have seen reason to limit the section
to v. 4. So far as it relates to transactions between Abraham
and the Philistine Abimelech, the passage is naturally Elohistic.
The author, as usual, avoids putting the name Jehovah into the
mouth of a person not of the chosen race, and makes Abimelech
address God by the title Adonai, while Abraham, speaking to
him, naturally uses Elohim as the more intelligible name, in
preference to any proper name he might himself have privately
employed. And as Abraham thus uses Elohim, the historian
1
¹ It is also remarkable that Abraham, in speaking to Abimelech, v. 13, uses a plural
verb in concord with Elohim, contrary to the general usage when this word denotes
the true God, or God generically. Some particular cause is to be looked for, when an
exceptional usage of this kind takes place. In the present case, Hengstenberg attri-
butes the plural verb, not to the plural form of Elohim, but to the same cause in
which this originated, namely the desire to express the unlimited excellencies of the
divine nature. But this would apply to all cases where Elohim occurs, and there is
nothing in the present instance to account for such a desire being specially manifested.
The same cause which occasioned the use of Elohim in v. 13 in reference to the Jeho-
vistic xii. 1, namely the suitableness of the general term in speaking to Abimelech, and
the weakness displayed by Abraham on this occasion, may have led to the use of the
plural verb also. On the supposition that Abimelech was a polytheist, or had no
definite monotheistic belief, this manner of speaking might have seemed more likely
to have been intelligible to him. Hengstenberg asserts that a reference to the
parallel passages, such as xxxv. 7, Deut. iv. 7, 2 Sam. vii. 23, proves that this could
CH. XX.-XXI. 4.
447
falls into the same use. Not associating Jehovah in his mind
with Abimelech, he says that Elohim appeared to him in a
dream, v. 3, and again in v. 6, where the article of reference
identifies the dream as the same, not a different dream, as the
English Version would make it appear. On this article of
reference prefixed to Elohim we have, however, already spoken
sufficiently, and need not now say more about it. This Elohistic
use continues to v. 17, where we are told that Abraham prayed
to Elohim, so named as it was probably in presence of Abi-
melech, and Elohim healed Abimelech and his wife, and
maidservants, or rather concubines (1, slaves of his
harem), and they gendered; not bare children, as in the English
version, for the verb is masculine, and must include Abimelech
not be the cause, as all must be explained in the same way. Why this should be
expected it is impossible to conceive. The special circumstances of each case may
sufficiently account for the peculiar usage in each particular case. The instance in
xxxv. 7 will be considered hereafter, as also xxxi. 53, not referred to by Hengstenberg.
Deut. iv. 7 is not a parallel case: "What nation so great, which hath gods nigh unto
them, as Jehovah our God is in all things we call upon him for?" Here Elohim,
with the plural adjective, is distinguished from Jehovah the Elohim of Israel, and
either it denotes the false gods of the heathen, or else the plural use is intended to give
the expression greater indefiniteness, q.d. "not merely not Jehovah, but no gods
whatever." In 2 Sam. vii. 23 there is an imitation of this passage, the usage of
which is followed in this respect, though there is all through the passage great irregu-
larity of construction. David, addressing God, says, "What, like thy people, like
Israel, one nation in the earth, which gods went, D, to redeem for him
for a people, and to make for him a name, and to do for you the great things, and
terrible things for thy land, before thy people, which thou redeemest for thee from
Egypt, nations, and their gods?" It is impossible to build much on the construction of
so confused a passage as this now is. The introduction, however, of the clause, "to do
for you the great things," though he was not speaking in the presence of the people,
besides the general similarity, shows that he had Deut. iv. 7 in view, and imitated
that in the plural construction of the verb with Elohim. In Exod. xxi. 6 and xxii.
8, 9, Elohim is possibly used to denote judges, as in Ps. lxxxii. Perhaps it may be
thus used also in Ps. lviii. 12, "Verily there are
righteous judges as opposed to the unrighteous implied in v. 1, Do ye judge
uprightly, O ye sons of men?" Or the concrete may stand for the abstract-there are
manifestations of divine judgment, literally Gods judging-the question thus answered
not being whether a God exists that judges righteously, but whether he exercises and
manifests his judgment in the earth. It is finally to be remarked respecting such
exceptional constructions, that though one naturally expects to find a reason for their
occurrence, at the same time writers do occasionally adopt unusual modes of expres-
sion without any special reason observable by others, or even felt in their own con-
sciousness. And in regard to the construction of words connected with plural forms
having a singular signification, not merely transcribers, but even the original writers
would always be liable to slide unconsciously into the observance of the ordinary
rules of concord. Conclusions, therefore, drawn from such exceptional instances, and
explanations offered to account for them, must always be received with considerable
reserve.
Jig
",in the earth אֱלֹהִים שֹׁפְטִים Verily there are
448
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
1
in its subject, and the interval did not admit of childbearing
(see Keil, in loc.). Now no one could suppose from the pre-
vious account, that any plague had been inflicted on Abime-
lech and his women, which would have rendered the begetting
of children impossible, and plainly something is necessary to
explain this statement of v. 17. Accordingly, we find the
expected explanation in v. 18. God had fast closed every womb
for the house (?) of Abimelech, on account of Sarah, Abra-
ham's wife. But, the writer adds, in contrast with this (the
in xxi. 1 is evidently adversative) that he visited Sarah as he
had said, and she conceived and bare a son. But the writer,
though he had used Elohim in v. 17, adopts Jehovah when he
mentions the Divine interposition on behalf of Sarah, and con-
tinues this name in xxi. 1. The point to be insisted on is, that
v. 18 of xx. is necessary to explain v. 17, and that xxi. 1 stands in
the closest connexion with xx. 18. The writer having thus intro-
duced Jehovah as acting on behalf of Sarah, and fulfilling the
divine promise to her, "as Jehovah had said," and as "Jehovah
had spoken," then states the fact of Sarah's conception and
bearing of Isaac, as having taken place at the set time Elohim
had spoken of to Abraham, and states that Abraham circumcised
Isaac as Elohim had commanded him. This renewed Elohim
seems plainly due to the reference in the writer's mind to the
promise and command in ch. xvii., where, though it is Jehovah
is said to have appeared in v. 1, yet it was under the name of
El Shaddai, in sequence with which the rest of that chapter is
Elohistic. It might, quite unconsciously to himself, have hap-
pened that, in thus reverting to ch. xvii., the Elohistic use would
have recurred, yet there might have quite easily existed a
lurking association of ideas occasioning it.
While we have thus in the Jehovistic part a reference to an
Elohistic passage, we have also a reference in the Elohistic
¹ The expression in the Hebrew is y, rendered by the LXX. σuvÉKRELTE
ětweev, denoting an external hindrance, which accounts for the mention of the
healing of Abimelech also, whose debility had a share in the default.
CH. XX-XXI. 4.
449
to a Jehovistic passage. For the request, which Abraham says
he had made of Sarah when he left his father's house, seems to
be only a generalised form of the same request particularly
described in ch. xii., and the reference is probably to that
occasion as the time when the request was made.
The LXX. all through, except in xxi. 2 where they have
Kúpιos, agree with the Hebrew in the use of the Divine appella-
tions.
The entire of this narrative in ch. xx. is, however, ascribed
by the partitionists to the junior Elohist, with the exception
of v. 18, which is given to the Jehovist, but with what pre-
tension it is hard to say, except that it contains the name Je-
hovah. The pretence for giving this narrative to the junior
Elohist is that it is merely a varied repetition of the story of
Sarah's introduction into the house of Pharaoh when Abraham
went into Egypt, xii. 10-19, the same thing having nearly
happened also to Rebekah at Gerar. Davidson indeed admits
"it is true that in these rude times the same event may have
happened in different places, at considerable intervals of time;
and that dissimilar as well as like circumstances are connected
with each narrative." He adds, however, that it is remarkable
that two events so strikingly alike should have occurred in
Abraham's life. It is not at all remarkable that an event, which
the custom of the times rendered so probable that Abraham
took a special precaution against consequent danger to himself,
should have taken place a second time under like circumstances.
Nothing moreover is said of the preservation of Sarah's charms
to so late a period of her life, which he thinks is implied in the fact
that she was taken into Abimelech's harem.¹ The occasional use
As the narrative presupposes that at this time Sarah had miraculously acquired a
renewal of the capability of childbearing, perhaps this story is introduced to in-
dicate that at the same time, in this the year of her pregnancy, she had acquired
such a renewal of the natural concomitant physical attributes, as would render her
childbearing a matter of less curiosity. The narrative also presupposes such pro-
longed ages, as would make a prolongation of comparatively youthful appearance not
improbable. This story should therefore be judged in connexion with, and not apart
from, the other particulars of the narrative.
29
450
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
seen
of the veil in public, and even by women of loose character,
xxxviii. 14, would often render it doubtful what was the age or
appearance of women; and it is not unlikely that they might be
seized and taken into the harem without respect to their charms,
to be employed in any capacity for which they might be suited,-
as wives if attractive, as servants if otherwise, or else with a
view to obtaining ransom. Abimelech may not even have s
Sarah, when he dreamed the dream related in this chapter. It is
not without reason, therefore, that Davidson says "there is some
room for doubting the identity of the facts on which these por-
tions of the history are founded." The last verse of the chapter,
containing the name Jehovah, is evidently an integral part of
this narrative, and its necessary connexion with it is not con-
sistent with the supposition of different authorship.¹
While the allegation that this passage contains only a varied
account of the transaction related in xii. 10-19, which was
attributed to the Jehovist, affords a pretext for not assigning it
to the same writer, a pretext for giving it to the junior Elohist
in preference to the earlier Elohist is found in v. 1. "That
it cannot belong to the primitive document is shown by the
commencement, Abraham journeyed from thence, D,' im-
plying a definite locality in the land of Canaan; whereas no
such abode is given before in the Elohist, who speaks vaguely
of the land of Canaan (xii. 5, xiii. 12, xvi. 3);" Davidson, p. 45.
He forgets that this argument is against the junior Elohist
no less than against his predecessor, inasmuch as the only
passage previously ascribed to him, xvi. 2, does not make
mention of the land of Canaan at all, or of any locality. The
existence of this adverb, referring to a definite locality, is there-
fore an argument for connecting the present passage with that
which does specify such a locality, namely ch. xviii. xix., which
left Abraham in the plains of Mamre. And thus the present
W
1 The Bishop of Natal adopts the notion of different authorship with this reserve,
that the later Elohist may perhaps have been the Jehovist at a different period of his
life. To this conjecture of the Bishop, made more than once, attention will be paid at
the proper time.
CH. XX-XXJ. 4.
451
Elohistic passage is united with the Jehovistic chapters xviii.
xix. We are indebted to the partitionists themselves for this
argument, which, if it proves anything, proves the Jehovistic
origin of the present passage, and so disproves the events related
in it to be only a different version of the same that were
previously told by the Jehovist in xii. 10-19. A cause which
depends on arguments thus destructive of one another has little
claim on our respect.
The assertion that its entire spirit and tone are inconsistent
with the older Elohist is too vague to be grappled with,
and depends entirely on the correctness of the adjudication
of the several previous passages to each writer respectively.
But it is alleged that "the manner of expression approaches
that of the Jehovist," to whose age the junior Elohist is supposed
to have been nearer than to that of the older Elohist. The
proofs of this assertion are these:-1. Abraham is called a
prophet. Prophets and prophesying are not mentioned else-
where in this book. In the other books of the Pentateuch they
are mentioned in only three places,' besides in the book of Deu-
teronomy, to which, however, the partitionists have precluded
themselves from appealing, by disallowing the appeal in a case
adverse to their views. "Passages in Deuteronomy should be
cautiously referred to the documents in question, because the
Deuteronomist himself writes much of that book." So says
Davidson, i. p. 26, in reference to the different phrases used to
express the making of a covenant. The other passages in the
Pentateuch are too few to establish any distinctive usage.-2.
'The coming of God in a dream to Abimelech." As all the
dreams of this book are given to the junior Elohist himself,
excepting one of Pharaoh's dreams, which is given to the Je-
hovist, this is an odd instance of approaching the manner of the
Jehovist.-3. "Elohim in the plural." This has been already
noticed, and calls for no further remark.-4. "My land is before
thee," xx. 15. The phrase occurs, beside the present instance,
1 Exod. vii. 1, Num. xi. 24-29, xii. 6.
452
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
in xiii. 9.
What does a single instance like this prove ?-5.
"the south country," v. 1. Beside the present instance,
this word is used four times in places ascribed to the Jehovist,
and once by the supposed Redactor. The summary notices to
which the Elohistic narrative is reduced in the later part of the
book, and the absence from it of all journeyings, sufficiently
account for the want of local terms in it.-6. 7, v. 13.
This phrase is the counterpart of Y, already remarked on,
and likely to occur in narratives of the same kind as those which
would contain the latter phrase. The subject matter, on which
the passages given to the Elohist treat, does not afford scope for
its employment. If, however, these arguments tend to prove
anything, it is the identity of authorship between the present
passage and the parts ascribed to the Jehovist. We have already
seen how the reference to a definite locality in v. 1 connects it
with ch. xviii., which is Jehovistic in its character, and how the
concluding Jehovistic verse must also belong to it. Everything
that has been adduced tends to contradict the supposition of its
so-called junior-Elohistic authorship. The existence of this
writer has only been imagined, in order to account for passages
which, on the grounds that support the supposition of a plurality
of authors, could not well be ascribed to the separated Elohist
or Jehovist. Whatever tends to weaken the evidence of his
existence, tends to weaken the proofs of a plurality of authors,
inasmuch as the other documents are thus separately embar-
rassed with the very difficulties, which have been supposed to
require or support the supposition of separate authorship. Here
a plainly Jehovistic passage contains particulars, which have
been supposed to have been only a repetition, in another form, of
a tradition already given by the Jehovist in an earlier part
of the narrative ascribed to him.
הַנֶּגֶב
Dr. Davidson and his authorities give the first verse of
xxi. to the junior Elohist, notwithstanding its Jehovistic
character, which comes as abruptly and with as little to
explain it after the Elohism of the previous narrative ascribed
CH. XXI. 5-21.
453
to him in xx., as it would if the whole were the composition
of one writer using both names. The first and last clauses
of v. 2 are then given to the Elohist, and the second to the
Jehovist, v. 3 to the junior Elohist, and 4, 5, to the Elohist,
with a similar interchange of short sentences and clauses be-
tween these and the compiler through the chapter. The Bishop
of Natal, however, unhesitatingly gives all from v. 1 to the end
of 5 to the Elohist, fully perceiving the improbability of the
subdivision made by other critics. His principal reasons for
giving these verses to the Elohist are of course the references
to xvii. To be sure, if that chapter is by a separate author the
references to it may have been by the same; though according
to the notion of a Jehovist, who worked upon the original
Elohistic document, his referring to that chapter would not
seem impossible. He instances, as an indication of likeness
between this and another assumed Elohistic passage, the collo-
cation of the words, "Sarah conceived and bare," as compared
with "
Abraham expired and died," as if in both places the
collocation was not natural, that which happens first, conception
or expiring, being placed before what must come last, namely
bearing or dying.
§ 11. CH. XXI. 5-21. THE DISMISSAL OF HAGAR AND ISHMAEL.
ELOHISTIC.
THE break between this and the preceding section is not
strongly marked. But the previous narrative already gave
sufficient indications of Abraham's age at the time of Isaac's
birth, namely his age, ninety-nine years, when the promise
was given that Sarah should have a son at the same time in the
next year, and then the fulfilment of that promise "at the set
time," xvii. 21, xxi. 2; and the repetition of his age now, with the
allusive way in which Isaac's birth is mentioned in connexion
with it, after having been already described and then followed by
the mention of subsequent matters, agrees with the prefatory
commencement of other sections also. The expression of Sarah
454
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
that God had made her laugh, and that others would laugh
with her, and of her delight at having an infant to nurse, seems
prefixed to the subjoined narrative in special contrast to the
mocking laughter of Ishmael. It was in this connexion with
Isaac's name and Sarah's laughter that the sting of Ishmael's
mocking laughter had its existence. The critics, therefore,
who give verses 6 and 7 to the Jehovist, because of the refer-
ence to Sarah's laughter in ch. xviii., as the Bishop of Natal, or
to the junior Elohist as others, and then give v. 9 to a different
author, show a great insensibility to the connecting line of thought
that unites these verses. As a reason for withholding the passage
8-20 from the Elohist, the Bishop alleges, amongst some very
slender indications, the use of instead of in describing
Hagar. But it is to be observed that the latter, which, he says,
is always used by the Elohist, is in all the passages quoted used
for a woman's handmaid, and does not ever bear the additional
meaning of a maid used as a wife, which the former has in the
case of Abimelech's maids in xx. 17. Here too, this additional
idea has place. "Cast out," not this servant-maid, but "this
{
servant-wife and her son." The desire to find verbal differences
lying in mere habits of speaking has made the Bishop often
quite insensible to the niceties of language.
In assigning this narrative of the dismissal of Hagar and
Ishmael to the second Elohist, the Bishop gives the 21st verse
to the Jehovist, but others the last half of v. 20, on the
ground that the same writer would not have said Ishmael dwelt
in the wilderness, and then so soon after that he dwelt in the
wilderness of Paran. But this is very weak. The wilderness
in v. 20 is of course the wilderness of Beersheba, where they first
went, or simply the wilderness in general, as opposed to more
cultivated country. There he grew and became an archer.
Then he settled finally in the wilderness of Paran, and got
married. The great reason, however, for assigning the passage
in general to the second Elohist is the pretence, that this story
of Hagar's dismissal is only another form of the previously
CH. XXI. 5-21.
455
F
mentioned flight in the Jehovistic passage ch. xvi. That being by
the Jehovist, it would not suit the theory to assign the repeti-
tion of it to the Elohist, who is supposed to have preceded the
Jehovist. If it belonged to the Jehovist, it must relate to a
different event, and would afford no pretext for division. The
junior Elohist is therefore called in to take on him the pater-
nity of this alleged repetition. That "the principal circum-
tances are identical," as Davidson alleges, is plainly untrue.
The time was different, the one being before, and the other
after, the birth of Ishmael, and when he was over fifteen years
of age; the first was a voluntary flight, the second a deliberate
dismissal by Abraham himself; the places were different, the one
being in the wilderness of Shur, the other in that of Beersheba;
in the one case the angel finds her sitting by a well, in the
other she looks in vain for water until the angel shows it to
her; on the first occasion she is bid return to her house, but on
the other nothing of this kind is suggested, nor does she return
as she did before; in the one case the name to be given to the
yet unborn child is intimated, he is to be called Ishmael be-
cause Jehovah had heard her supplication; in the other the name
is not mentioned, but allusion made to its import. The only
points of agreement are the jealousy of Sarah, so likely to have
broken out again, and the appearance of the angel. It is hard
to conceive how the occurrence, in its transmission through
two independent channels, could take such different forms. The
confirmation which Davidson says the supposition derives from
the fact that the one account is for the most part junior-
Elohistic, the other Jehovistic, is null; this supposed fact is
inferred from the imagined identity of the transaction, and
cannot in its turn confirm the supposition of this identity.
This is the character of much of the reasoning which pervades
the entire discussion. The verses which introduce the dismissal
of Hagar and her son, namely 8 and 9, bring the difference of the
occasion of this from that of her previous flight into such pro-
minence, that it seemed better to assign these as an after inven-
456
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
tion to the Redactor, than to leave them as part of the original
narrative. The Redactor finding this second narrative, and
unwilling to let it appear as a somewhat inconsistent repetition
of a former narrative, makes an occasion for it, as the account
of a different transaction, by fabricating the feast at the time of
Isaac's weaning, and Ishmael's mocking on that occasion! Any
theory may be proved, if it is allowable to resort to such con-
trivances to evade the difficulties that offer themselves. Though
the intervention of the angel is one of the chief points of resem-
blance between this and the earlier story, and certainly has no
appearance of an interpolation in v. 17, the clause, “an angel
of God called to Hagar out of heaven," is here given to the
Redactor; and then the appearance of angels is said to be a
characteristic of the Redactor, as here and in xxviii. 12; see
p. 28. He says the appearance of angels is in the junior Elohist
and Redactor, referring to these passages. Is this a contrivance
to make a distinctive characteristic for these?
The Bishop of Natal makes this the earlier story, and
supposes the Jehovist to have inserted the other in ch. xvi.,
either not "perceiving that he was introducing a contradiction,
or, possibly with the intention of cancelling this earlier notice.”
What may not be proved, if we may prop a theory with con-
jectures of this kind? The Bishop adds, "It is plain, however,
as we have said, that the account if Elohistic was first written,
since if this writer had had before him the narrative in xvi.
4-14, he would hardly have said in xxi. 19, " She saw a well of
water," without identifying the well in some way with that
which was already so conspicuous in the story." But why
should he have done so, if he did not, as he very well might not,
intend the same well to be understood? If he was writing in
good faith, he might very naturally have believed it different.
If he was inventing a second story, it would have been clumsy
to bring the fugitives to the same well.¹
1 The difficulty arising from the supposed size of Ishmael, as greater than to be
borne by Hagar, is met by the Bishop by a story of a Zulu. "Unkungo, son of
Umpande, king of the Zulus, was just such a lad as this, and very fat, when he fled
CH. XXI. 22-32.
457
In regard to the Elohism of this passage, it is intelligible
enough on the supposition of a single author. In Sarah's words,
Elohim hath made me to laugh," we see an implied contrast
between the supernatural and the natural; this was a pleasure
that came to her, not in the natural course of things, but by the
direct interposition of Divine power. Then this feeling of con-
trast between the Divine and human may have still continued in
the writer's mind, and he may have ascribed the communication to
Abraham in reference to Hagar and her son to Elohim, as if
to imply that it was not Sarah's desire nor his own will that
made him dismiss them, but a Divine command, just as after-
wards it is a Divine command, and not a human fancy, that makes
him go to offer up Isaac. Then when we come to Hagar herself
in the wilderness, it was natural to represent her in communica-
tion with Elohim, not with Jehovah, as being an Egyptian. It is
true it was the angel of Jehovah that found her in xvi. 7, and bid
her return home. But then Hagar was still identified with the
Abrahamic family, though she herself only used the name El;
and it was, perhaps, in accordance with the design of identifying
Jehovah with the name El-roi, as with other names and titles
in other places, that Jehovah was there used. Now Hagar is
finally severed from Abraham, and Jehovah would thus be less
appropriate. Moreover, the name Elohim seems also to have
been here specially used in reference to the meaning of the
name Ishmael, "God heard" (Ishma-Elohim) "the voice of the
lad."
The LXX. coincide with the Hebrew in this usage in the
present section.
§ 12. CH. XXI. 22-32. THE COVENANT AT BEERSHEBA. ELOHISTIC.
THIS passage is also naturally Elohistic. Abimelech does not
of course use Jehovah, and says to Abraham that Elohim is
from his brother's fury not long ago; and he was then carried by his mother and
might have been cast under a tree' by her, if dying of thirst, or lifted up and grasped
by the hand; and he 'grew-up' afterwards in Natal.”
458
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
with him, and asks him to swear by Elohim. This Abraham
does, but makes no use of the name of God as far as the narra-
tive represents this transaction. The LXX. agree with the
Hebrew. The passage is ascribed to the second Elohist, as in
sequence with ch. xx.
This section seems naturally to close at Abimelech's return into
the land of the Philistines, though there is no decided break of
sections. Only the subject of the next chapter is wholly different,
and belongs to a considerably subsequent period. The question
is, therefore, at what point the division of sections should be
made. The reasons for dividing at the end of v. 32 will pre-
sently be stated.
§ 13. CH. XXI. 33, 34-XXII. 1-19. THE OFFERING OF ISAAC. ELOHISTIC
AND JEHOVISTIC.
ONE reason for commencing a new section at xxi. 33 is the
absence of the name of Abraham in v. 33. If this verse had
been written in immediate connexion with the preceding, or
introduced into immediate connexion with it by a different
writer, the ambiguity arising from the fact that the subject
in v. 32 is Abimelech would have been avoided. If it is joined
to 32, the natural supposition will be that it was Abimelech
planted the grove, especially as Abraham is named in v. 34.
This, however, was plainly not intended by the writer, and he
would scarcely, if writing in continuity, have left out Abraham.
But if he had broken the connexion with v. 32, so that Abime-
lech was no longer in his thoughts as the subject of his pre-
vious sentence, it was quite possible that Abraham, the general
subject of the history, should have been brought into action in
the three first clauses, without being named until after the last
verb in them. Abraham is named, however, both by the LXX.
and the Samaritans in v. 33. Another reason is, that in xxii. 1
it is not simply Elohim, but the Elohim that tempts Abraham,
that is, the Elohim just spoken of in xxi. 33, the commence-
ment of xxii. being thus, as already noticed, brought into
CH. XXI. 33, 34-XXII. 1--19.
459
-
the closest connexion with the last verses of xxi. Abraham
plants a grove, and he invokes there Jehovah by the name
of El-Olam, the everlasting God. It has already been noticed,
that the worship of God under certain localised names and titles
seems to have been prevalent in those times. The instances
have been already enumerated, and the rendering of the LXX.
in the present case, in accordance with this practice, noticed:
ἐπεκαλέσατο ἐκεῖ τὸ ὄνομα κυρίου, θεὸς αἰώνιος. This latter ex-
pression—an equivalent in meaning, or nearly so, for Jehovah—
is used as an indeclinable in apposition with ovoμa. The
writer, having thus described the invocation of Jehovah by this
localised name, mentions that Abraham sojourned in the Philis-
tines' country many days, meaning a considerable period, inas-
much as Isaac was somewhat grown when the next event is
introduced. Then after these things, namely all that had
been mentioned, the planting of the grove, the invocation
of El-Olam to it, and the sojourn for this extended period,
the Elohim, the God whose worship Abraham had established
for himself in that place, tempts him as described in this
chapter. The article of reference thus connects the passages
together, and accounts for the Elohistic character of the com-
mencement of ch. xxii. And it is remarkable that, while
Abraham speaks of God as simply Elohim, in the two in-
stances in which the writer himself again refers to the com-
mand expressed in v. 1 Elohim has this article of reference.
The Elohim of the grove, El-Olam, gave the command, v. 1;
Abraham went to the place of which the Elohim just men-
tioned had told him, v. 3; and they came to the place which
that Elohim had told him of, v. 9. This continued reference
plainly connects the command with some special manifestation
of God to Abraham at that grove, which accounts for the
writer's use of the name in his own person. An additional
motive to the use of the name in v. 1 is the contrast to be
marked between this temptation as proceeding from a Divine
source, and men's ordinary temptations from other sources.
460
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
While the use of Elohim by the writer himself is thus ex-
plained, its use, as attributed to Abraham in v. 8, is also explained
by the implied contrast between God and man. It is as much as if
Abraham had said in reply to the question, Where was the lamb
for a burnt offering? "We need not trouble ourselves about that;
God will see to that, not man.
And then when the angel says
in v. 12 "I now know that thou fearest Elohim," this is equiva-
lent to saying that he was a godly man; while if the angel had
said, "I know that thou fearest Jehovah," this would more
naturally signify that he was a worshipper of Jehovah as
distinguished from some other God that other men served,
which is not at all what is intended. At the same time, that
Jehovah should be introduced at the crisis of the story, when he
comes forward in a personal and visible form, is quite natural,
especially as this is the last and greatest, the grand crowning
appearance of God to Abraham. On the other hand nothing is
gained as regards the use of the names of God by the separa-
tion of 14-18 from the rest of the narrative, inasmuch as v. 11,
which introduces Jehovah, must remain a substantive part of the
earlier portion of the narrative, and is necessary to render the
succeeding verses intelligible. But the partitionists themselves
are not agreed to which of the writers these parts must respectively
be assigned. Some, as Davidson, will have the early part to be
by the later Elohist, and the verses 14-18 by the Jehovist, while
the Bishop of Natal gives these verses to his Deuteronomist, and
leaves the rest to the Jehovist. His great reason is that, as noted
by Delitzsch, Jehovah swears by himself, as he does nowhere else
in his intercourse with the Patriarchs. And yet Abraham says
in xxiv. 7 that Jehovah had sworn unto him, which the Bishop
ና፡
I will not, however, allow to be a reference to this passage,
because here there is no promise of the land as there mentioned.
Still it is an instance of Jehovah swearing. Another is men-
tioned in xxvi. 3. The Bishop evades these by saying that the
covenant of Jehovah was regarded by the Jehovist as equivalent
to an oath. The separation of these verses, however, is con-
CH. XXI. 33, 34-XXII. 1-19.
461
tradicted by a very striking reference in one of them to the
earlier part of the story. That reference is in the name which
Abraham gave to the place where the offering was made. Je-
hovah-jireh is manifestly adopted from the Elohim jireh of
v. 8: “My son, Elohim jireh, Elohim will provide himself a
lamb for a burnt-offering." This was fulfilled in the ram caught
in the thicket, while in the future form which the Patriarch
still preserves in the name Jehovah-jireh, there is the prophetic
anticipation of the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of
the world. It is impossible to believe that this reference to
v. 8 was accidental, and the existence of it negatives the sup-
position that the Jehovistic verses belonged to a separate and
independent narrative. They must, if not à primâ manu, have
been a simple interpolation of a later writer, who, if he had
written with this reference in view, would rather have made it
more exact by using Elohim, to which it is admitted he was
not averse on a suitable occasion, or would have changed the
Elohim of v. 8 to Jehovah. In the latter clause, "as it is
said, in the mount of the Lord it shall be seen," or "in
the mount the Lord shall be seen," the unpointed Hebrew
is the same as in the former, 77, and it would natu-
rally be expected that in the latter case the verb would have
been read actively, as in the former-Jehovah will provide.
Instead of this, however, while the pointing in the first case is
active, , in the second it is passive, 7. Now the
LXX. by their respective translations, κύριος εἶδεν, and κύριος
pen, show that in their time the word was in the first instance
read actively, and in the second as a passive, just as now in
the pointed Hebrew, a clear proof of the antiquity of the tradi-
tional vocalisation in this case. A writer having in view a pro-
verbial saying of his day, would, if inventing, have been much
more likely to have made Abraham's words, in giving the
name Jehovah-jireh, accord with this proverbial saying, than
to have made an inexact reference to the words of v. 8. For
what is purposely done is always more likely to be exact than
462
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
¿
what proceeds from spontaneous, and it may be unconscious,
suggestion.¹
The LXX. agree with the Hebrew in this section as regards
the names of God.
§ 13. CH. XXII. 20-24, XXIII. FAMILY OF NAHOR, DEATH OF SARAH,
AND PURCHASE OF A BURIAL PLACE. ELOHIM IN ONE INSTANCE.
2
THE Concluding verses of ch. xxii., which have no connexion
with what precedes, seem to have been prefixed to xxiii. with the
design of introducing to the reader the new female, through whom
the descent of the promised race was to take place, simultaneously
with the removal of Sarah from the scene. Hence we have the
names of Milcah's and the other children of Nahor, with the one
grandchild Rebekah, enumerated immediately before the men-
tion of Sarah's age and death. But while ch. xxiii. is assigned to
the Elohist, these genealogical verses must, according to the
partitionists, belong to the Jehovist, because the verb "beget"
is used in the Kal instead of the Hiphil form, in mentioning that
Bethuel had begotten Rebekah. Yet this form seems to have
been used in conformity with the feminine of the same conjuga-
tion, tense, and person, adopted in describing the birth of
Milcah's children. The 7 to which Milcah was the sub-
ject suggested quite naturally the in the case of Bethuel,
the change of gender being all that the writer would have
thought of making in such a context. The Hiphil could not
¹ It may be asked, why may not the original vocalisation of the first have
been passive in accordance with the proverbial saying afterwards quoted, and the
reference to the previous Elohim jireh in v. 8 have no existence at all? The answer
to this is that we must deal with the document as it has come to us, the correctness
of which is in this instance confirmed by the LXX., who, if not quite sure of the true
reading, had every temptation to make the two words coincide one way or the other.
If we may depart from the existing document for the purposes of theory, of course it
is easy to make it coincide with the necessities of the theory to be proved. But this
would be to launch out on a sea of unlimited conjecture; and a theory thus maintained,
cannot rise above the uncertainty of the conjectures by which it is supported. Besides,
once the unpointed name in v. 14 took its place in the same document with v. 8,
its pointing was determined by the evident reference, and a question could only
exist as to the pointing of the second in v. 14.
2 The indirect mention of another, in the words, "Kemuel, the father of Aram,"
was probably intended to distinguish Kemuel from some other person of that name.
CH. XXII. 20-24, XXIII.
463
have been used in Milcah's case. The , supposed to
be also a peculiarly Jehovistic expression, is sufficiently ac-
counted for in these verses by the occasion. If they were
superfluously introduced, their use would have more weight;
but plainly in v. 20 this expression is highly significant.
Sarah having had a son at last, news then comes to Abraham,
perhaps after a long interval in which no intelligence had been
received, that her sister Milcah, she too, had borne children.
In v. 24 again it comes in quite naturally, and not as a super-
fluous phrase. First, the concubine of Nahor is named in the
Hebrew manner, "and his concubine, and her name was
Reumah." Then follows the new sentence, "and she also
bare," etc.
use.
The succeeding part of the section, ch. xxiii., is assigned to
the Elohist, not on account of the occurrence of the name
Elohim in v. 6 (" thou art a prince of Elohim," Baoiλeùs πaρà
Оcoû, LXX., for a mighty prince), but on grounds of style and
verbal usages. Thus it is thought that the date of Sarah's
death and the statement of her age are specially Elohistic, parti-
cularly the phrase, "the years of Sarah's life," which is com-
pared with a couple of somewhat similar phrases in xxv. and
xxxv., and five expressions in xlvii., all of which, in their turn,
will be referred back to this as an Elohistic authority for their
And yet the statement of Sarah's age has the word,
"hundred," not in stat. constr. as it is in xvii. 17, this being con-
sidered a specially Jehovistic form, as is also the longer form for
the pronoun "I" used here. The word for "a possession" used
in this chapter, and regarded as an Elohistic indication, will be
considered in the general survey that will be taken of these sup-
posed distinctive phrases, as will also the particle, expressing
a wish, v. 13, used also in xvii. 18, and for which the Bishop
endeavours to create a more extended use by a conjectural
emendation of the pronoun after the verb in v. 5 and 14, and
a different position of the full stop. The LXX. do not read the
pronoun, it is true, but instead of reading in place of it
464
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
with the Bishop, they read the negative. And even in v. 13
they read "to me," instead of this particle, which is thus
expunged by them altogether. The other phrases adduced are
Jehovistic as well as Elohistic, and the repetition of the descrip-
tion of the cave of Machpelah, so often copied afterwards with
legal precision, can prove nothing as to the origin of this passage,
as it in all cases follows the first use of it here. The style of the
whole passage is so peculiar and unlike any other part, that it
must be considered sui generis, its peculiarity being due to the
occasion and circumstances to which it relates, as the earliest
recorded instance of a treaty and bargain for the purchase of a
possession in land.
§ 14. CH. XXIV. MISSION TO PROVIDE A WIFE FOR ISAAC.
JEHOVISTIC AND ELOHISTIC.
THIS chapter is given at full length in Davidson's table to
the Jehovist, with the exception of the last clause of v. 67,
"And Isaac was comforted after his mother," which is assigned
to the Redactor. The reason for this of course is, that Sarah's
death is only mentioned in the preceding Elohistic passage, and
this being a distinct reference to that, it would not suit the
theory that the Jehovist was an independent writer. It is con-
venient therefore to ascribe it to the Redactor. But neither a
Jehovistic interpolator, nor a compiler putting together the two
accounts, would have had any motive to introduce in this place
the mention of Isaac's being comforted after his mother's death.
But to a writer who had shortly before mentioned that event,
and now tells how Isaac had brought his wife into Sarah's tent,
nothing comes more naturally than this intimation of the allevia-
tion of Isaac's grief for his mother. It is a natural and unde-
signed coincidence, that closely connects the passages as pro-
ceeding from the same author.
The Bishop of Natal, however, gives all to the Jehovist,
except 59, 60, which he assigns to his Deuteronomist, on the
pretext that they do not fit well with what follows in v. 61.
CH. XXIV.
465
His verbal justifications are,―The mention of Rebekah's nurse,
but not her maidens, the nurse being mentioned again in xxxv.
8, which is referred to this as being also by the Deuteronomist.
But it is only the mention of this nurse that there identifies that
place with the writer of the present. The use of "thousands and
ten thousands" in v. 60, these numbers being also mentioned in
the poetical places Deut. xxxii. 30, xxxiii. 2, 17, but the con-
struction being quite different from what is here.-"Thy seed
shall inherit the gate of his enemies," a like saying being also in
xxii. 17, which the Bishop gives also to the Deuteronomist,
there referring to this place. As the expression occurs
nowhere else, each simply supports the other in turn.
But
apart from all this, which can scarcely be designated otherwise
than as verbal trifling, there is really no inconsistency, or unfit-
ness in the verses as they stand. It is the regular Hebrew usage in
such cases to describe the separate act of each party: Rebekah's
family dismiss, that is, bid to depart, and give their blessing to
Rebekah; and then she arises and takes her departure.
In describing the mission of Abraham's servant to procure a
wife for Isaac, his consequent visit to Bethuel, and his return
with Rebekah, the writer uses both names of God frequently,
with the strictest observance of their respective characters as the
one a proper name and the other a general term, and with a
careful attention to dramatic propriety as regards the person
who is represented as speaking. Thus in the writer's own
usage, and in what is ascribed to Abraham and to his kinsman
Laban, God is simply Jehovah without any addition, except in
the instances to be noticed presently. But in the mouth of
Abraham's servant, who was not of the chosen family, he is simply
Jehovah in only one or two instances evidently for the sake
of avoiding repetition; but for the most part, and as if with care
to make it understood that the worship of Jehovah was only
adopted by him from Abraham, he is "Jehovah, the Elohim of
his master." And hence when Abraham makes him swear
before he departs, it is not simply by Jehovah, as Abraham's
30
466
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
God, but as the God of heaven and the God of the earth, that he
adjures him, and as Jehovah the God of heaven that had sworn
unto him to give the promised land to his seed. Thus while the
servant habitually regards Jehovah as Abraham's God, Abraham,
for the solemnity of his oath, will have him remember that he is
the God of heaven and the God of the earth. And so wherever
throughout the passage Elohim is used, it is in its proper
character as a general term forming the predicate of an assump-
tive preposition, of which the proper name Jehovah is the
subject. The only difference in the usage of the LXX. is that
they have kúptos ó leòs, instead of simply kúptos in v. 40, where
the servant repeats his master's words, "Jehovah before whom
I walk."
It is in this passage that mention is made of Aram-Naharaim,
or Mesopotamia, on which, as distinguished from Padan-Aram,
the Bishop of Natal and others rely, as a peculiarity of the
supposed Jehovistic writer, to whom they ascribe this passage.
But in the first place it is to be observed that the name only
occurs in this one instance in the book of Genesis, and a singular
instance is not sufficient to warrant the supposition of any habi-
tual predilection for one name over another. And next, if the
Bishop had consulted so old-fashioned an authority as Bochart,
Phaleg. II. 6, he would have seen that Aram-Naharaim and
Padan-Aram are by no means synonymous. Aram-Naharaim
denotes the country at large, Mesopotamia or Aram of the two
Rivers, thus designated to distinguish it from Aram-Damasek,
and other Arams, of which mention is made in the Old Testa-
ment. On the other hand, Padan-Aram means a particular
district of Mesopotamia, the northern part, distinguished by its
fertility from the southern region which was incapable of culti-
vation, as Bochart shows from Strabo, Xenophon, and Polybius.
Padan, as Bochart remarks, was significant of the fertile cha-
racter of the northern district, the Arabic, phadan, denot-
1 If, as Davidson argues, one exception cannot spoil a rule, certainly one instance
cannot establish a rule.
CH. XXIV.
467
ing a cultivated field; and the Padan Aram is consequently
represented in Hosea xii. 12 by Sedeh Aram, the cultivated
district of Aram, to which the prophet says that Jacob fled,
with reference to his journey to Padan-Aram mentioned in Gen.
xxviii. The only difference between these expressions is that
Padan, from frequent use, had assumed something of the cha-
racter of a proper name, and is therefore used without Aram in
Gen. xlviii. 7. As Padan, thus used for brevity, would be
Padan-Aram written in full, so Padan-Aram itself, used in this
form for brevity, would, as Bochart remarks, be Padan-Aram-
Naharaim if written in full. The Bishop of Natal, apparently
with the view of identifying in meaning Padan-Aram with
Aram-Naharaim, translates Aram-Naharaim in accordance with
a fancied etymology, "the highlands of the two rivers," instead
of "Syria of the two rivers." This is quite arbitrary. Aram,
whatever was its derivation, is as well established a proper
name as any in the Old Testament; and there is no instance of
its being used as an appellative in the sense ascribed to it by
the Bishop, whose object appears to have been to evade the
reply, that Padan-Aram was only a particular district of the
entire country called Aram-Naharaim, by making the latter
itself appear to be only the name of a particular district, the
highlands at the sources of the Euphrates and Tigris. An
artifice of this kind only weakens the cause it is intended to
support. Davidson (p. 27) admits that there may be truth in
the assertion that the one name only denotes a particular dis-
trict, while the other signifies the whole of Mesopotamia, "as
far as the original meaning of Padan-Aram is concerned." But
as regards the use of the terms, he has nothing better to say
than the arbitrary dictum, "we deny that there was any dif-
ference between the names in actual usage." There is nothing
in the use of Padan-Aram, or Padan by itself, to denote more
than a local subdivision of the entire country, the name being
only used of Laban's dwelling place. On the other hand,
though Aram-Naharaim occurs only once in Genesis, yet it is
468
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
used elsewhere in a sense that is plainly general. Pethoi,
where Balaam lived, "by the river of the land of the children
of his people," is in Deut. xxiii. 4 called Pethor (of) Aram
Naharaim. This Pethor-Aram would be distinguished from
Padan-Aram, and either might be used with or without Naha-
raim, except it was desired to distinguish this Aram from some
other, as in the title of Ps. lx., where Aram-Naharaim is dis-
tinguished from Aram-Zobah, whatever value that title may
possess. The only other place where Aram-Naharaim is found
is in Judges iii., where the king of Mesopotamia is mentioned, and
the term of course describes the whole country. Dr. Davidson,
therefore, had nothing for it but simply to deny the existence
of a difference in usage, for the absence of which he could give
no evidence, while in favour of its existence so much is to be
alleged.
This chapter has, in addition to this and the word
already discussed, one or two phrases which, in p. 30, Davidson
mentions as rare words used by the Jehovist. One of these is
, for showing kindness, which besides xx. 13 given
to the second Elohist, only occurs in this chapter, and in
xl. 14, a chapter it pleases him to give to the junior Elohist
also. Of course no inference can be drawn from what, by
his own showing, is a singular instance in the Jehovist. An-
other of these words, , is of frequent occurrence as the
form of with the termination denoting motion or direction
towards, and is employed indiscriminately in the parts assigned
to both Elohist and Jehovist. The rare case is where this ter-
mination is merely paragogic as in Isaiah ix. 1 (viii. 23); but
it does not occur in Genesis. The plural, though not
unusual, occurs less frequently in this book. In x. 5, 20, 32,
where it is found in a recurring formula, it is equivalent to only
one instance. This is given to the Jehovist. In xxvi. 3, 4, it is
conferred on the Redactor, and in xli. 54 on the junior Elohist.
There is nothing therefore to establish distinguishing Jehovistic
usage in regard to this word. The participle cannot be
CH. XXV. 1-11.
469
called unusual, as it is the regular participle of a very common
verb. Besides its occurrence in this chapter, it is found in
ix. 26 given to the Redactor; in xiv. 19, 20, to the Jehovist;
in xxvii. 29, 33, also given to the Jehovist; and in the preceding
chapter, v. 29, where it is allowed to the Elohist. The weak-
ness of the cause which depends on such proofs as these is plain
to the candid reader.
The length of the narrative, its fulness, and particularity of
statement, the necessary repetition of many words which the
subject matter required, and the repetition of many more from
the tendency to repeat which characterises the entire book, with
the opportunity which the subject of the narrative afforded for
introducing and reproducing many colloquial phrases and traits
of social manners, have made this chapter one of the strong-
holds of the theory,-the great repertory of Jehovistic charac-
teristics, the frequent recurrence of which in it has tended largely
to swell the entire numbers of those expressions on which the
Bishop of Natal so greatly relies. The principal of these will
be considered in the general survey of the verbal peculiarities
that have been summed up by the Bishop. It will suffice to
remark here, that the frequency, greater or less, with which
phrases or words recur in the same context and connexion of
ideas, partly necessary, and partly in accordance with a habit
that prevails in all parts of the book, adds nothing to the value
of those expressions as distinctive characteristics, beyond what
would accrue from a single occurrence of them in the same
passage.
15. CH. xxv. 1-11. ABRAHAM'S FAMILY BY KETURAH, HIS DEATH
AND BURIAL. ELOHISTIC IN ONE INSTANCE.
THIS is the concluding part of the principal section headed
"The Generations of Terah." It contains the account of Abra-
ham's family by Keturah, the disposition of his property, his death
and burial, and Isaac's succession to that divine blessing, which
had been the peculiar privilege of Abraham. The first six
470
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
verses are assigned to the Jehovist, because in xvii. 17, which
is given to the Elohist, Abraham is represented as incredulous
in regard to the promise of a son when nearly at the age of an
hundred years, while now at a far greater age he marries again
and has six sons. "One author," says Dr. Davidson, “could
hardly have written both," p. 69. The objection is founded on
an assumption not warranted by the words of the author, how-
ever the English Version by its "then again" may favour
the supposition that the connexion with Keturah was subse-
quent to Sarah's death. The original does not necessarily
imply this; it only says that "Abraham added and took a
wife,” προσθέμενος δὲ-ἔλαβε γυναῖκα, LXX. The future with
the conversive rau may only denote that this was subsequent
to the marriage with Sarah, and the connexion with Hagar
previously mentioned. And it is quite in accordance with the
practice of the writer to go back at the commencement of any
of the subdivisions of the book to a period earlier than that
reached at the close of the previous section. Abraham had
apparently no son but Ishmael before the birth of Isaac,
who is afterwards called his only son, with reference merely
to Sarah, who was, strictly speaking, his only wife; but
the connexion with Keturah may have been any time after
Isaac's birth. The sons of his concubines were sufficiently
grown to be sent away and established in the east country
before his death. It may have been a considerable time before,
as seems implied by the statement, that he had sent them away
"while he was yet living." As he could not have sent them
away after he was dead, the statement that it was while he was
yet living would be absurd, if it did not mean something more,
and indicate an earlier period, while some different form of
expression would more naturally be used to denote that it was
just before he died. The narrative was mainly concerned with
the circumstances that related to Isaac, and the account of
these was not interrupted by the mention of the marriage with
Keturah. Before he mentions the death of Abraham, however,
-
CH. XXV. 1-11.
471
the writer pauses to record this particular in the Patriarch's
history; and it is most unwarrantable to infer from its being
here mentioned, that it must have taken place at so improbable,
not to say impossible, a period of his life. But it seems to be
the rule in this discussion to hold the author responsible for the
most difficult and objectionable interpretation of his words,
however possible it may be by a fair and reasonable construc-
tion, which would not be denied to any other writer, to exoner-
ate him from the imputed absurdities.
The Bishop of Natal remarks on the sons of Abraham by
Keturah, Pt. v., Crit. Anal., p. 105, that "in v. 3, Sheba and
Dedan are derived otherwise than in x. 7 and x. 28, so that all
these three notices, notwithstanding these variations, may be
due to the same writer, who possibly betrays in this manner
some uncertainty in his information, or, perhaps some bifurca-
tion in the tribes themselves." Generally it is by agreements
that identity is determined, and discrepancies are made the pre-
text for supposing a diversity of authorship. But here the
alleged discrepancies are made the ground of identification.
That is, because the writer of ch. x. is imagined to contradict
himself in the course of that passage, so another contradiction
here must be by the same. Surely he could not have been so
great a bungler as not to perceive this supposed inconsistency,
if it had any existence. But the frequent occurrence of similar
names belonging to different persons does not seem to have been
thought of as a possible explanation.
The remainder of this passage down to the last clause of
e. 11 is given to the Elohist. This is not merely because the
name Elohim occurs in it, for it is allowed to the Jehovist to
say Elohim; but because this passage connects itself by the
mention of the cave of Machpelah, and the burial there of Sarah,
with ch. xxiii., which we have already seen it was thought fit
to give to the Elohist. Thus the connecting force of the
references which are made in subsequent parts to previously
mentioned incidents is avoided. Verbal peculiarities cannot go
472
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
far in the present instance to justify the appropriation to the
Elohist. It is true that in specifying Abraham's age, the word
N is in the stat. constr., which is asserted to be Elohistic; but
in ch. xxiii., in the mention of Sarah's age, it appears not in
regimen, as in the Jehovistic passages. The word is also
1
used in reference to Abraham's death, but as it is coupled with
, little can be built on its use here. But if it suits the
T
theory to make these verses belong to the Elohist, in order to
avoid a reference by the Jehovist to the Elohistic ch. xxiii.,
what would be the use of this, if thereby an Elohistic reference
was produced to a previous Jehovistic passage? This would be
still more adverse to the theory, as the Elohist is supposed to
have preceded the Jehovist. Hence it is necessary to give the
last clause of v. 11, "And Isaac dwelt by the well Lahai-roi,"
to the junior Elohist, because this well is spoken of as well-
known, and is only mentioned in the Jehovistic passages xvi.
14, and xxiv. 62. The convenience of a couple of supernu-
merary authors, such as the junior Elohist and the Redactor, to
take the credit of every stray sentence that would otherwise.
stand in the way of the theory, is unquestionable; but the
contrivance is perfectly arbitrary and unwarrantable. Even
this number is felt by some to be insufficient, and a fore-
Elohist has been suspected, besides one or two more, whose
hands have been engaged in making up this farrago libelli.
See Davidson, p. 42, 46.
The statement in v. 11, that after the death of Abraham
Elohim blessed his son Isaac, is evidently intended not merely
to indicate that in a common way Isaac had God's blessing,
which he doubtless had before Abraham's death, but that Isaac
now succeeded his father in the inheritance of the special bless-
ing of the chosen seed. And as this is the last verse of one of
the principal sections of the book, which commenced by tracing
the family of Abraham from Terah, and then at the earliest
mention of Abraham after his father's death describes the first
communication of this blessing in the Jehovistic xii. 1-3, the
CH. XXV. 12-18.
473
reference should be traced to this in preference to the subsequent
blessing in ch. xvii., though that is more Elohistic in its character.
The reason why in the present case Elohim is adopted, on the
supposition that the writer had each name equally in use accord-
ing to circumstances, is that here is no special communication of
the blessing, in which God might have appeared in a personal
character that would have suggested the proper and personal
name, and the Divine source of the blessing and of Isaac's pros-
perity is rather in the writer's view. The LXX. have Oeós.
.
VIII. THE GENERATIONS OF ISHMAEL.
CH. XXV. 12-18. NO MENTION OF GOD.
THE history of Isaac, whose succession to the Divine blessing
was mentioned in the last verse of the preceding section, is now
interrupted for a short time, to give a brief sketch of the history
of Ishmael and his descendants. There is in it no mention of
God, but the section is attributed to the Jehovist, doubtless
because the particulars relating to Hagar in xvi. 4-14 are
attributed to him, and he has no previous mention of the birth
of Ishmael. But as the mention of the birth of Ishmael in the
latter part of v. 15, with v. 16 of that chapter, is attributed to
the Elohist, as also the promise in ch. xvii. of the twelve princes
to be begotten by Ishmael, whose names are given in the present
passage as the "twelve princes according to their nations," it
would seem as if this present passage should belong to the same
writer as these passages just mentioned. And this might seem
the more reasonable, as the account of Ishmael's age and death
in v. 17 is given to the Elohist. But advantage is taken of the
concluding clause of v. 18, "And he died in the presence of all
his brethren," to give to each writer the mention of Ishmael's
death. In the latter clause, however, it is not "he died," but "he
fell,”, and this word does not signify to die, unless something
in the context indicates what sort of falling is intended. It
denotes to be overthrown in battle, or to be ruined generally,
474
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
and with some addition, as "by the sword," to die, or as in the
highly poetical 2 Sam. i., 19, 25, "How are the mighty fallen!"
where it is added, "thou wast slain," or as in 2 Sam. iii. 38,
where special reference is made to the news of Abner's death.
Something is needed in the context to make the kind of falling
intended manifest, and the use of the word in the present passage
would be insufficient by itself, and must be regarded as existing
in reference to the previous mention of Ishmael's death in v. 17.
Thus the separation of this passage into parts proceeding from
different authors is highly objectionable on purely verbal
grounds.
IX. THE GENERATIONS OF ISAAC.
§ 1. CH. XXV. 19-34. BIRTH OF ISAAC'S SONS, AND SALE OF THE
BIRTHRIGHT BY THE ELDER. JEHOVISTIC.
THIS is the commencement of another of the principal divisions
or Toledoth into which the book resolves itself, and, as usual, it
begins with a recapitulation of events already mentioned, whereby
an opportunity is afforded of supplying to one of the supposed
authors a statement of facts already described by another. Thus
it tells how Abraham begat Isaac, how at forty years of age Isaac
married Rebekah, and whose daughter and sister she was, all
before amply described, but now briefly repeated to give com-
pleteness to the new section, which contains the separate history
of Isaac and his family down to his death. The first sub-
division of the section, proceeds from this mention of Isaac's
marriage to describe the barrenness of Rebekah at first, how Isaac
intreated Jehovah, and how after that she became the mother of
Esau and Jacob. As on the occasion of Abraham's death it was
said that God blessed Isaac, the Divine favour being thus expressed
only in a general way, it was the more likely that the writer should
at the outset of Isaac's history bring him into relation with Je-
hovah, the personal God of the family. This sufficiently accounts
for the Jehovistic character of the passage as regards the name
of God. The LXX. agree with the Hebrew in this, except that
CH. XXV. 19-34.
475
in the latter part of v. 21 they have God instead of Jehovah :
Isaac intreated the Lord, and God was intreated of him. The
intimation from Jehovah to Rebekah that the elder should serve
the younger, in v. 23, naturally leads to the story of the sale
of the birthright at the close of the chapter, the principal parts
of the section being thus connected. Moreover . 24, stating
that at the time of birth there were twins, is not a repetition
that betrays another hand, inasmuch as Rebekah did not know
the cause of the sensations which led her to inquire of the Lord,
and the information that she was bearing twins rested entirely
on the Divine answer to her inquiry. It was therefore quite.
natural that the verification of that oracle when the time of
birth arrived should have been mentioned by the writer. The
mention of the twins was also needed in v. 24 to introduce the
subjoined particulars. The whole is therefore well connected
together.
The passage, however, is anatomised by the partitionists in a
way which has the less claim on our attention, as they are not
agreed in the division of it. Thus Dr. Davidson's table gives
c. 19 to the Jehovist and 20 to the Elohist, this latter con-
taining the name Padan-Aram, which must not be allowed to
the Jehovist. The Bishop of Natal, however, gives v. 19 also
to the Elohist. If he had left it to the Jehovist this writer
would have used in instead of for to beget, which the
Bishop will not allow. His remark that the particularity of
the account of Isaac's marriage implies that the writer knew
nothing of the Jehovistic chapter xxiv., in which it had
already been fully described, is disposed of by the fact just
noticed, that here it occurs in the recapitulatory preface of one
of the principal sections of the book, according to the analogy
of these divisions in general, and of many of the lesser sec-
tions also. Then again 21-26, except the last clause of 26
given to the Elohist, is assigned in Dr. Davidson's table to the
Jehovist, while the Bishop gives the first part of 21, 22, 23, to
the Jehovist, and the latter part of 21 and 24-26 to the Elohist.
476
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
The Bishop then gives the remainder of the chapter to the Je-
hovist, while Davidson's table only gives him 27, 28, and assigns
the story of the sale of the birthright to the Redactor or compiler.
If this be correct, the reference to this in xxvii. 36, "He hath
taken away my birthright, and behold now he hath taken my
blessing," should be given to the compiler also, which it is not in
Davidson's table, but is by Boehmer.¹ In this disagreement it
is needless to discuss the propriety of the respective partitions.
When men fall out about the division of the spoil, the right
owner may come by his own.
§ 2. CH. XXVI. 1-33. ISAAC WITH ABIMELECH. JEHOVISTIC WITH
AN ELOHISTIC EXCEPTION.
In this passage Jehovah is said to have appeared to Isaac on
the occasion of his going into Gerar, and to have blessed him
when he sowed in that land. On the removal of Isaac to Beer-
sheba, he appeared again and said, "I," that is, the same Jehovah
who appeared, "I am the Elohim of Abraham thy father." Here
Elohim, as the general term, appears in its proper place as the
predicate, while the pronoun, implying the proper name, stands
as the subject. So far there is nothing remarkable in this
passage; but in the subsequent part there is the unusual ap-
pearance of the name Jehovah in the mouth of Abimelech, who
was not of the chosen family. A little consideration, however,
will show that in this Abimelech is speaking of Jehovah, not as
his own God, but as the God who had blessed and protected
Abraham, and who, he now perceives, has the same care of Isaac
also. Abimelech with Ahuzzath and Phicol comes to him, and
they assign as the cause of their visit that they certainly saw Je-
hovah was with him. And then, having desired that a covenant
should be ratified between them, they conclude by saying, "Thou
art now the blessed of Jehovah." The whole point of the saying is
in this word now. As Abraham was before, so Isaac is now the
1 Bishop of Natal, Pt. v., Crit. Anal., p. 130.
2 Here again we have the oft recurring alliteration, yn, and previously in
יצחק מְצַחֵק,8 .2
CH. XXVI. 1-33.
477
blessed of Jehovah.
It is therefore as Abraham's and Isaac's
God, and not as his own, that Abimelech here speaks of Jehovah.
The use of this name, therefore, by Abimelech and his attendants
does not argue any special Jehovistic tendencies on the part of
the writer, who merely puts the name into their mouth, as the
representative in the later times of the writer of such proper
name as Abraham and Isaac had themselves in actual use in
their day, whether that was Jehovah or not. The LXX. coincide
with the Hebrew.
This passage affords an instance of the renewed imposition of
a name already given under particular circumstances, and again
re-imposed on a suitable occasion. Abraham had given the name
of Beersheba to the place where he had made a covenant respect-
ing a well with Abimelech, and the name became ultimately so
well established that, even before the circumstances are mentioned
which gave rise to the adoption of the name, the place is pro-
leptically called Beersheba by the writer. Yet we find the
writer again in the present passage describing the new digging.
of the well, the new making of a covenant respecting it with
Abimelech, and the new imposition of the name Beersheba in
consequence, as if the name had now for the first time been
adopted. There is added here, what was not said on the former
occasion, "therefore the name of the city is called Beersheba
unto this day." This remark may be understood as implying
that on the first occasion the name had not obtained such an
established use as to perpetuate it, but that the perpetuation of
it resulted from its renewed imposition by Isaac. Thus a
reasonable account can be given of the only real difficulties the
passage seems to present, namely the imposition of the name
Beersheba by Isaac, and the use of Jehovah by Abimelech and
his attendants.
The circumstances, however, mentioned in this chapter of
Isaac's sojourn in Gerar, his fears on account of Rebekah's
beauty, and the names Abimelech and Phicol, which re-
appear in this story, have led the advocates of multiplied
478
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
authorship to regard this as only a repetition in varied form,
and as applied to Isaac, of what had before been related of Abra-
ham's visit to Gerar and Sarah's introduction into Abimelech's
family, this being itself supposed to be only a repetition of
Abraham's visit to Egypt and the circumstances which took
place there. And as it was argued that these two latter were
only the forms which the same traditional event took in the
hands of two different authors, namely the Jehovist and the
junior Elohist, so a third and subsequent writer of the present
history must be found. It would disturb the order of the
assumed succession of the writers to go back to the Elohist.
Hence the Redactor assumes the authorship of the greater
part of the first twenty five verses of the chapter. The
parts not given to him are v. 6, "And Isaac dwelt in
Gerar," attributed to the junior Elohist; v. 13, and 14 to end
of first clause, describing Isaac's prosperity, 16 and 17, mention-
ing his departure at the request of Abimelech, 19-22, describing
the digging of the wells, together with the first clause of v. 25,
all given to the junior Elohist,, doubtless because these being all
new matter may be given to him, but else would interfere with
the notion of a new form of the old story already twice told.
But plainly if the Redactor with all the materials before him is
not content with interweaving into the compilation the materials
that came to his hand, but must add from himself so large a
portion, and that not new matter gleaned from other sources,
but a mere variation of a story already twice existing in his pre-
vious materials, then he ceases to be a mere compiler, and assumes
the character of an interpolator of his own inventions. The story,
however, is entirely unlike the two former, except in the appre-
hension on account of Rebekah's beauty, and the pretence that
she was Isaac's sister, as regards both, and the sameness of the
place and names as regards the later of those two narratives.
The apprehension, however, would naturally arise from a know-
ledge of the former occurrences, especially on Isaac's going to
the place where the second of the two had happened, and might
CH. XXVI. 1-33.
479
have suggested the same expedient, which had not resulted in
any ill consequences on those occasions. The recurrence of the
names, whether as official titles or as hereditary names, is so
natural and probable, that any objection drawn from this cir-
cumstance is purely factious. Indeed, Fuerst notices that the
Achish, king of Gath, mentioned in 1 Sam. iii. 21, is called
Abimelech in the title to Ps. xxxiv. If that is to be trusted,
this name at any rate was apparently a title of office. If, then,
there is no reason for regarding the events as identical, there is
no occasion for bringing in a new author for each as it occurs.
The concluding passage of this chapter, from . 26 inclusive
to the end, is mainly given to the Elohist in Davidson's table,
notwithstanding that the only name of God occurring in it is Je-
hovah as already noticed, for which no doubt the Redactor would
be made responsible. The latter clause, however, of v. 33,
"Therefore the name of the city is called Beersheba unto this
day," is not attributed to the Elohist. The Redactor is made
responsible for this also. It is to be observed, however, that
r. 32, which is given to the Elohist, presupposes the last clause.
of r. 25 given to the Redactor. Isaac's servants digged a well on
their arrival at Beersheba, and then they came and told him, as
mentioned in . 32, of the well they had digged, which would be
unintelligible as it appears there, if the previous statement had
not existed. Then this well of which they bring word is called
Sheba, in consequence of the oath made in the meantime; and
the name of the town becomes Beer-Sheba after the well thus
named. There is no symptom of interpolation in all this,
which is closely and naturally connected together.
Such is the treatment of the passage by these critics. The
Bishop of Natal, however, does not agree with them, as regards
a great part of the passage. He gives the fourth and fifth
verses to the Deuteronomist, mainly on the strength of the
words, "My charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my
laws," similar and synonymous words being thus frequently
combined in Deuteronomy, but nowhere else four occurring
480
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
together as in Deut. xi. 1 and here. The resemblance, however,
is mainly in this number, as the order and one of the terms differ.
Another reason is that the words, "and I have given to thy seed
all these lands," is a mere useless repetition of the same words in
7. 3, and suggests the possibility of an interpolation. The Bishop
does not perceive the true nature of v. 4, as here given. In
. 3 Jehovah promises to Isaac that he will give to him and to
his seed these countries, and will perform the oath which he sware
unto Abraham his father. That oath he then repeats in sub-
stance, and nearly in words, as given in xxii. 17. First the
promise is made directly to Isaac himself in c. 3, and then it is
quoted as part of the oath to Abraham in e. 4. There is there-
fore no unmeaning repetition in the present case. The rest of
the story to the end of . 16 the Bishop gives to the Jehovist,
as he did that of Abraham in Egypt; the second Elohist to whom
he ascribes the story in ch. xx. being also, as the Bishop sus-
pects, the Jeho vist at a different time of his life. The Bishop
thus waves the objection founded on the sameness of the stories
so strongly insisted on by others, but explains the repetitions
by a complex theory of re-writing and modifying, and then re-
taining cancelled passages unsuppressed; "and thus the narra-
tive has come down to us with all its contradictions and per-
plexities," contradictions and perplexities which he has, like
others, imagined or created for himself.
Verse 18 compared with 15 is given by the Bishop to the
second Elohist, with the remark that "it seems plain that one
and the same writer cannot have written these two almost
identical passages in such close juxtaposition, as part of the
same context." And he adds that the Jehovist in e. 15 “ repre-
sents this 'stopping' of the wells as proceeding direct from the
'envy' of the Philistines towards Isaac, e. 14; whereas in
e. 18 it is mentioned merely as a fact, which had resulted
in consequence of Abraham's death." Now here one cannot
help suspecting that the Bishop, in spite of all his minute
analysis of the Hebrew text, has been betrayed by the English
CH. XXVI. 1-33.
481
Version in v. 15. The for of that Version, which indicates that
the stopping of the wells had proceeded from the envy of the
Philistines, has no place in the original, except so far as one
might think it needful thus to interpret the copulative ↑ at the
commencement of the verse. But if this were the meaning, and
the stopping had preceeded from the envy of the Philistines,
this would have been connected with the future as indicating
the sequence of events. Instead of this the use of the future
with the rau conversive is here interrupted, and the verb is in the
past tense. Now this change of tense is not arbitrary in
Hebrew; either a new subject wholly unconnected with what pre-
cedes is commenced, or else the idea of subsequence is dropped and
the time may go back to some period preceding that last men-
tioned, and the verb have a pluperfect sense. The rendering
should therefore be, "And (or, but) all the wells which his
father's servants had digged in the days of Abraham his father,
the Philistines had stopped them." And the reason why this is
here mentioned seems to be that the writer meant to intimate
why Isaac continued in Gerar, notwithstanding the envy of the
Philistines, until Abimelech desired that he would depart. He
was unwilling to go to the neighbourhood of Beersheba, because
the wells there had been stopped. It was necessary therefore
when he went from thence to the valley of Gerar to dig again
those wells which the Philistines had stopped after his father's
death. The LXX., it is true, in translating v. 15, use an aorist,
evéopağav, but this is with a pluperfect sense, as in the previous
use of the aorist åpuğav, where the sense is necessarily pluperfect.
And so we have the same aorist forms in v. 18 for both verbs
where they are plainly pluperfect.
plainly pluperfect. The remainder of this
¹ The Vulgate, however, avoids the difficulty in a different manner. It renders
thus: "Invidentes ci Palæstini, omnes puteos quos foderant servi patris illius Abra-
ham, illo tempore obstruxerunt, implentes humo: in tantum, ut ipse Abimelech,
diceret ad Isaac: Recede," etc. Then when it comes to 18 it says, Rursumque fodit
alios puteos, quos foderant servi patris sui Abraham, et quos illo mortuo, olim
obstruxerant Philistiim. The alios is plainly not justified by the 1 of the Hebrew,
בְּאֵרֹת הַמַּיִם and is excluded by the definite
31
482
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
passage from . 18 is given by the Bishop to the Jehovist, in
variance with other critics.
§ 3. CH. XXVI. 34, 35, XXVII., XXVIII. 1-4. ESAU'S MARRIAGE, THE
BLESSING OF JACOB BY ISAAC, AND HIS MISSION TO PADAN-
ARAM. JEHOVISTIC AND ELOHISTIC.
THE marriage of Esau is wholly unconnected with the pre-
ceding passage, but stands in close connexion with the latter
part of this new section. Hence the two last verses plainly form
its commencement, to which there was no occasion to prefix any
recapitulatory preface as in other cases. But while these verses
are thus the necessary commencement of the ensuing narrative,
there is nothing but the juxtaposition to create the impres-
sion, which the subsequent history removes, that the trans-
actions related in ch. xxvii. followed immediately on Esau's
marriage. The Bishop of Natal indeed insists on the incon-
gruity of the age of Jacob when he set out to be married, upon the
supposition of the interval of thirty-six years, which the chro-
nology of the book as it stands requires. But as the partition
of the book does not free the narrative to which the Bishop
gives his approval, as the purest and most consistent with pro-
bability, from the difficulty of extraordinary ages and child-
bearing at an unnatural time of life, there seems no object in
insisting on those incongruities as reasons for breaking up the
book as a compilation of inconsistent fragments or separate
narratives. Whatever principle is adopted in explaining such
difficulties, as they still exist in the separated parts, will just
as readily serve in regard to the whole in its integrity.
The first mention of God is when Isaac asks how the venison
has been found so soon, and Jacob says in reply, "Jehovah thy
Elohim brought it to me." Here each word is in its proper
place, one, the proper name, as the subject, and the other, the
appellative, as the predicate of an assumptive proposition. And
the reason of speaking thus is intelligible enough. Jehovah
brought it to him because he was Isaac's Elohim. Next, in
('.
CH. XXVI. 34, 35, XXVII., XXVIII. 1-4.
483
v. 27 Isaac says that the smell of his son is as the smell of a
field which Jehovah has blessed; and then he immediately adds,
"Ha-Elohim give thee of the dew of heaven," etc., .., that
Elohim, namely Jehovah just named, give thee the blessing of
the field now mentioned. The article here is plainly, as in
xxii. 1, the article of reference, and used for the purpose of iden-
tifying Jehovah with Elohim. The Bishop is thus as mistaken
in making the word with the article a special Jehovistic indica-
tion,' as others are in giving it a special meaning as the personal
God, as has already been abundantly shown. There is no
further mention of God until in xxviii. 1-4 Isaac bids Jacob go
to Padan-Aram for a wife, and then repeats, as his final benedic-
tion on Jacob, the El-Shaddai blessing of ch. xvii. This bless-
ing, originally imparted to Abraham and Isaac together, is trans-
mitted by Isaac to Jacob, now that he is about to leave the land
which Elohim gave unto Abraham, Elohim here following, as
in other places, the use of El-Shaddai, which, if it was the name
for which Jehovah was afterwards substituted, would, when it is
employed, naturally exclude the use of its later substitute. The
LXX. agree with the Hebrew, except that, as already mentioned,
they represent El-Shaddai by ỏ Deós pov.
The entire of ch. xxvii. is given to the Jehovist by all the
advocates of divided authorship, with the exception of 7. 36,
which some give to the compiler, as it refers to the sale of
the birthright which is also given to the compiler, and then
of r. 46. But as Padan-Aram occurs in the commencing
verses of xxviii. that passage must be given to the Elohist,
as it is assumed the Jehovist could not have used that
name. But then, as xxviii. 1 is in close connexion with
xxvii. 46, Rebekah in the one expressing to Isaac her dread
at the thought of Jacob's marrying one of the daughters of the
land, while in the other, apparently in consequence of this,
Isaac charges Jacob not to take a wife of the daughters of
1 Pt. v. Crit. Anal., p. 94.
484
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
Canaan, if xxvii. 46 were the Jehovist's, the theory would seem
to be entirely upset by the Elohist taking up the Jehovist's
narrative. To avoid this difficulty, xxviii. 1 is made to follow
in sequence with xxvi. 34, 35, and the Redactor is called in by
some to bear the burden of xxvii. 46. But if the Redactor had
found in the Elohistic document the last verses of ch. xxvi.
followed immediately by the first verse of ch. xxviii., and had
interposed between them the Jehovistic ch. xxvii., there would.
have existed no motive for his then bringing in Rebekah as
expressing her fears as to Jacob's marrying one of the daughters
of the land. For while Rebekah had her own reason for
desiring Jacob to go to Haran, it was already stated that Esau's
Hittite wives were a grief of mind to Isaac as well as to Rebekah,
and the narrative, as put together by the Redactor, contained
already a sufficient motive for Isaac's charge to Jacob not to
marry one of the daughters of Canaan. It is to be presumed
that the Redactor would have limited his interpolations to what
was necessary to connect and complete the compiled narrative,
and would have avoided all gratuitous additions. On the other
hand it was quite natural that Rebekah, being anxious to get
Jacob away from the effects of Esau's anger, and knowing that
Isaac agreed with her in disliking the daughters of the land,
should have suggested this motive to him, with the view of
inducing him to send Jacob away.
The Bishop does not follow those who give the last verse of
xxvii. to the compiler, but he agrees with them in assigning
the commencing verses of xxviii. to the Elohist. Besides the
use of Padan-Aram already mentioned, the other points of dis-
tinction on which he relies are attributable to the direct trans-
ference of the El-Shaddai blessing from ch. xvii., the expressions
of the one being copied in the other. As an author of the
entire book might have done this as well, these coincidences
prove nothing of the present passage. And even on the
Bishop's theory, why might not his Jehovist have taken this
blessing from its Elohistic place in ch. xvii. ?
1
می
CH. XXVIII. 5-22.
485
4 (1). CH. XXVIII. 5-22. JACOB'S DEPARTURE TO HARAN, AND ESAU'S
TO ISHMAEL, TO OBTAIN WIVES. JACOB'S DREAM AND VOW
AT BETHEL. JEHOVISTIC AND ELOHISTIC.
THE fifth verse seems the most natural place at which to
make a new section commence. The charge which Isaac gives
Jacob not to take a wife of the daughters of Canaan, and the
command to go to Padan-Aram, with the invocation of Divine
blessing upon him, wind up the narrative of the preceding
chapter. And now a new section commences with a repetition
of Jacob's dismissal by Isaac, and an announcement of his con-
sequent departure to Padan-Aram to Laban. And as customary
at the commencement of a section, though Bethuel was des-
cribed in v. 2 as Rebekah's father, and Laban as her brother,
the description is for completeness in the new section repeated
here with minute particularity. There is also a further repeti-
tion. For before entering on the history of Jacob's journey
to Haran and his proceedings there, this section contains the
account of Esau's journey also to Ishmael for the purpose of
taking another wife. And in accounting for this the previously
mentioned particulars are in the customary way repeated,
namely how Isaac had blessed Jacob, and sent him to Padan-
Aram to take a wife, how he had charged him not to marry
any of the daughters of Canaan, and how Esau perceived that
these were displeasing to his father. This recapitulation both
serves as a reason for Esau's departure to Ishmael, and also
explains the circumstances and causes of Jacob's departure suffi-
ciently to give completeness in itself to the ensuing account of
Jacob's proceedings, which forms almost an unbroken narrative
to xxxiii. 17. It has, however, certain stages which naturally
separate themselves, and will admit of separate treatment with
advantage.
The use of the names of God in the first passage, which
reaches to the end of ch. xxviii., is readily explained. When
Jacob dreams, he sees a ladder from earth to heaven, and angels,
486
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
not the angels, but angels of Elohim upon it, messengers not
from earth to heaven but from heaven to earth, from God to
man not from man to God. Then at the summit stands God in
his personal anthropomorphic representation; he is therefore
naturally called by the proper and personal name, and an-
nounces himself as Jehovah, the Elohim of Abraham and of
Isaac, and now blesses Jacob as he had blessed them. When
Jacob awakes it is still Jehovah, he says, is in this place. But,
he adds, not this is the house of Jehovah, but "this is none
other but a house of God." Elohim is used in this connexion
with reference to the well-known name Bethel, which he pre-
sently gives the place, El being as yet the word for God used
in all compound names. He then vows that "if Elohim will
be with him, and will keep him in this way that he goes, and
will give him bread to eat and raiment to put on, and he comes
again in peace to his father's house, and Jehovah is his Elohim,
then this stone which he has set for a pillar shall be Elohim's
house." The English Version makes "Jehovah shall be my
Elohim" part of the consequent, with which the LXX. seem to
agree; but the verb in this clause is in the same tense
with the two preceding verbs, and becomes future in the
next clause, which therefore seems properly to begin the conse-
quent, as Hengstenberg insists. At any rate the names of God
in this passage, with which the LXX. agree except that at the
commencement of v. 20 it is kúpios ó leòs, not simply Ocòs, are
naturally and simply explained according to their proper use
and import, and require no supposition of different authorship.
But as xxxv. 15, "Jacob called the name of the place where
God spake with him Bethel," is assigned to the Elohist, and it
is assumed that the assigning of the same name on two seem-
ingly different occasions is an evidence of different authors
variously describing the same circumstance, and these varied
repetitions are usually given to the junior Elohist, so the pre-
sent passage is assigned to him in Davidson's table. The
verses 13-16, however, being too Jehovistic, must not be given to
T T
CH. XXVIII. 5-22.
487
him, while yet they are too closely connected with the context,
and too incapable of standing by themselves, to be regarded as
a substantive part of the Jehovistic narrative. Hence they are
treated as an interpolation of the Redactor. For consistency,
the clause, "and Jehovah shall be my Elohim," should also be
attributed to him, which, however, is not done. But now, what
motive would the Redactor have had to invent this portion of
the narrative? The vow is plainly taken from the promise, and
follows quite naturally from it; its several clauses, "if Elohim
will be with me," "will keep me," "will bring me again," if
"Jehovah will be Elohim to me,' as he was to Abraham and
Isaac, are plainly taken from the promise. It was quite
natural that Jacob, having dreamed a certain promise, should
make the fulfilment of that promise the condition of his vow;
but as the vow does not in any way presuppose the promise,
there was nothing to suggest the invention of it to the Redactor,
nor does the narrative in any way require it. And if he had
derived the promise from the vow, he would probably have
taken in the particulars of food and raiment, which are not in
the promise, and not have added to it the grant of the land and
the blessing in his seed of the families of the earth. Plainly,
the whole chapter is by one hand; and as the vow was that, on
condition of Jacob's return, the pillar of Bethel should be God's
house, that is, should be what he calls it, Bethel; so when he
comes back to the same place afterwards in peace, and then
calls that place Bethel, is not the re-imposition of the name a
plain reference to the vow? He called it Bethel before con-
ditionally; it becomes so absolutely in the fulfilment of his
VOW. And it must be remembered that on the earlier occasion,
when it is said that Jacob called this place Bethel, that was
only a name imposed in his own mind. He was a solitary
wanderer, and there was no one to whom he might commu-
nicate it. Whatever he may have called it in his own thoughts,
the name was not practically given until the subsequent occa-
sion. Surely the Jehovistic passage now before us, and the
•~
488
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
Elohistic xxxv. 15 are thus closely and undesignedly connected
together, and evince the unity of the authorship from which
they proceed.
The Bishop of Natal, having given down to v. 10 to the
Elohist, gives the remainder to the Jehovist without interrup-
tion; and he remarks on the change from Padan-Aram in 1-9
to Haran in e. 10, as favouring this change of authors just here.
Yet the Elohist had already spoken of Haran in xi. and xii.,
and it seems hard to deny him now the use of the same name,
which was not synonymous with the name previously mentioned.
Padan-Aram was a district of Mesopotamia; Haran was the par-
ticular place in it where the family of Rebekah dwelt, called in
xxiv. 10 "the city of Nahor" her grandfather. The Bishop
remarks also on the position of the words, "and in thy seed," at
the close of e. 14 as possibly by another hand, namely his Deu-
teronomist. But this position is sufficiently explained by the
fact that the preceding clause is exactly and literally adopted
from xii. 3, and the addition is therefore subjoined, not incor-
porated as it appears in the English Version. "This ground,"
in e. 15, on which the Bishop lays stress as a Jehovistic phrase,
is probably not meant as equivalent to "this land," in v. 13, but
denotes this very spot of ground, namely Bethel.
§ 4 (2). CH. XXIX.-XXXI. JACOB WITH LABAN. JEHOVISTIC AND
ELOHISTIC.
THIS passage, which contains the history of Jacob from his
arrival at Haran to his final separation from Laban, is a con-
tinuous and closely connected narrative, of such unity in its
character as not to admit of subdivision into briefer sections in
any way complete in themselves. The first of the chapters com-
prised in it is assigned to the Jehovist, with the exception of
24, 28, 32 first and second clauses, 33 first and fourth clauses,
34 first clause, and 35 first and fourth clauses, which the Bishop
of Natal gives to the Elohist. Its Jehovistic character as regards
the names of God is perhaps attributable to the circumstance,
CH. XXIX.−XXXI.
489
that Laban and his family, however they may have recognised
the true God and worshipped him, were still by no means free
from idolatrous notions and practices, as will be seen from the
incidents mentioned in this narrative. It may well therefore
have seemed fit to the writer, at his first mention of God in con-
nexion with Jacob's wives, to bring them into special relation
to the God of the Patriarchs as distinguished from all other
conceptions of the Divine Being. This will account for his
attributing to Jehovah God's favourable regard of Leah, and
making Leah attribute to Jehovah, that is, to the God of
Jacob her husband, the blessing of children by which she
was made happy. At the commencement of the next chapter
(xxx.) which is also, with one or two exceptions to be
noticed presently, assigned to the Jehovist, the change to the
use of Elohim is easily accounted for. Jacob is provoked by
Rachel's appeal to him, to give her children or else she will
die, and asks her in reply does she think he is in God's stead.¹
It is God not man has caused her barrenness, and God not man
can remove it. The contrast between the Divine and human
therefore sufficiently accounts for the transition to Elohim.
And then when Bilhah bears a son, and Rachel says, "God hath
judged me and hath also heard my voice, and hath given me a
son," there is plainly a reference to the previous use of Elohim.
Jacob had told her that God only, not man, could grant her
desire, and now she says God, not man, has heard her prayer and
done her justice. Afterwards when Bilhah has another son, and
Rachel says, "With wrestlings of Elohim have I wrestled with
my sister," Elohim is only used to intensify the sense of the word
"wrestlings," as a familiar way of speaking. It seems to have
been in a prevalent feeling of the Divine blessing, that Elohim
continues to be used in relating the subsequent birth of Leah's
two younger sons; while it may have been with more direct refer-
ence to the first introduction of the name at the beginning of the
1 Perhaps we should even render, "Am I instead of a God?”
490
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
chapter, that in e. 22 it is said that Elohim remembered Rachel,
and that, when she acknowledges the Divine goodness in giving.
her a son, she says that Elohim has taken away her reproach. The
writer having made her thus use Elohim, with this reference in
view, has no longer anything to suggest the contrast between
the Divine and human in regard to the granting of her desires,
and accordingly, when she expresses her anticipation of another
son, she says that Jehovah, that is Jacob's God, shall add to her
another son. All this may have come to the writer's pen quite
spontaneously, yet still not less really suggested in the manner
indicated, it being only of course the substance in the writer's
words, and not the actual words of the speakers themselves, that
he reports. Jehovah only occurs once more in this chapter, when
Laban, in . 27, asks Jacob to remain with him, as he has found
by experience that Jehovah has blessed him for Jacob's sake.
Here Laban uses the name with special regard to Jacob's relation
to God. It is not simply as God, but as Jacob's God, that the
Divine Being has blessed him; and this is expressed by the use
of Jehovah.
The story of the mandrakes is treated as an interpolation, and
is assigned to the Redactor as coming after the Jehovist. The
reason for thus regarding this passage, . 14-16, is intimated
by Davidson, p. 62. Unity of authorship is discountenanced
by duplicates which appear not unfrequently in Pentateuch-
duplicate etymologies, and traditional duplicates of the same
transaction.¹ Thus there are double etymologies of the names
Issachar and Zebulon (see Gen. xxx. 14-16 compared with v. 18
and Gen. xxx. 19, 20). In xxx. 16 the name Issachar is ex-
plained by the circumstance that Leah had hired (, hire)
-
66
G
1 The Jehovist is accused of forced etymologies, and an instance is mentioned as
occurring in the case of the name of Levi, xxix. 34, "Now this time will my husband
be joined unto me." Davidson, p. 30, maintains that the name was given because
the Levites were attached to the priests as their assistants. It is not, however, a
question about the etymology, which is the same in either case, but as to the reason of
it. Surely it is very forced to supersede the name of the tribe altogether, and to make
the term a mere designation of office. There is just the same evidence that Levi was
the name of the head of a tribe, as there is in the case of Judah or any of the other
tribes, that they bore the names of their fathers.
491
CH. XXIX.−XXXI.
Jacob from Rachel for a night with her son's mandrakes; while
in the eighteenth verse she calls the child Issachar, because God
had given her a hire or reward, for lending her maid to her
husband." Now in 14-16 the name Issachar is not explained.
at all, nor is it clear that there is even an allusion in it to the
name. If it was an interpolation afterwards made with refer-
ence to r. 18, the allusion would not have been so obscure
זְבָדַנִי
as it is. As an integral part of the original narrative,
it seems wholly irrespective of the name, and relates to a
circumstance that had taken place before the birth of Issachar,
while in . 18 the name is explained without any expressed
reference to that transaction, whatever mental reference to it
may
have existed. Leah is repaid not merely for giving her
son's mandrakes, but for a much greater act of self-denial in
allowing her place to be occupied by her maid in the hope of
increasing the number of the promised seed. If the name might
have been founded on the lower ground, a higher one is assigned
with good reason. This explanation of the name on the higher
ground being supposed to have already existed, there was no
motive for a subsequent writer to assign another, and still less,
so much a lower one, as that implied by the story of the man-
drakes,—a story moreover which, while quite in character with
the simplicity of pastoral life, is very unlikely to have subsisted
as an oral tradition to so late a period of Jewish history as that
of the supposed Redactor, and which therefore, if introduced by
him, would probably have been an invention of his own. But
there is no possible reason apparent which should have sug-
gested such an invention.
"In like manner Leah called her sixth son Zebulon, i.e.,
dweller, because, as she said, 'Now will my husband dwell with
me;' but her words, 'God has endued me with a good dowry,'
intimate dowry, as the meaning of the name Zebulon, from the
Hebrew 7, has given me a gift, i.., pbaar = pay;
daleth and lamed being interchangeable letters.” Here the
alleged double etymology is a pure imagination; as well might
זְבוּדוּן
1
492
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
1
“the Lord hath looked upon my affliction; now therefore will my
husband love me," be regarded as containing a second or even a
third explanation of the name Reuben (see a son), as God hath
endued me with a good dowry, be taken as an explanation of the
name Zebulun, in addition to the words "now will
now will my husband
dwell with me." The interchangeableness of the letters daleth
and lamed, as written letters, is only an interchangeableness by
the misreading of copyists from the slightness of the difference
in the form of the two letters. It could only have operated here
by the change of that which existed originally into the other,
in the course of time, through the error of transcribers, and then
by some subsequent editor finding the name not agreeing with
the explanation, and inventing another explanation to match
the altered name. But then if this is what is meant, it is for-
gotten in all this fine speculation, that the similarity of form
between the and only exists in the square or Chaldee
character, which came into use with the Jews after the Capti-
vity: the Phoenician or ancient Hebrew, which was in use until
after, on all hands it is admitted, the book of Genesis had
assumed its present form. had no such resemblance in these
Jetters as would have made such an interchange by copyists in
the remotest degree likely. But if the author means that the
letters were interchangeable as sounds, this indeed takes place
in the lapse of time, and in the divergence of nations who have
derived their language from the same common origin, as in the
case of the Greek dáxpu and the Latin lacryma, but there is
usually no interchange of these letters in the contemporaneous
pronunciation of the same people, except as cognates take
different shades of meaning. Nor is there the slightest evidence
that at different times the tribe was known by the names in the
different forms Zebudun and Zebulun. Had it been so, an
editor who found the name different from what was prevalent
in his time would. while inventing a derivation for the new
form, have also introduced the new form itself, if he did not
expunge the old, and would scarcely have trusted to the reader's
493
CH. XXIX.—XXXI.
perception of a nice phonetic principle, which indeed it cannot
be imagined that he knew himself.
son."
A third instance of double etymology is alleged to exist in
this chapter: "And she (Rachel) conceived and bare a son,
and said, God hath taken away my reproach. And she called
his name Joseph, and said, The Lord shall add to me another
“In the former case," says Davidson, "pi is equivalent
to from ; in the latter, the Jehovist deduces it from
to add.
To this Keil replies, that the former gives no
etymology, but only makes a slight allusion-a most incorrect
statement." That it is not an incorrect statement may be seen
by the allusion in the remark, "the Lord hath looked upon my
affliction," to the former part of the name Reuben, in which
case there exists no pretence on which to ground the supposi-
tion of a double etymology. These alliterative allusions, beside
the etymology, are of frequent occurrence, as already noticed in
other cases, like those of Noah and Japheth.
יוֹסֵף
There is a clause in r. 40, "and set the faces of the flocks
toward the ring-straked and all the brown in the flock of
Laban," which is given to the Redactor. This clause seems
awkward in the English Version. It is not so in that of the
LXX., who, however, omit the word Laban at the end of it.
Retaining this we must not connect the words, "in the flock
of Laban," with the "ringstraked and every brown," but with
the verb. "Jacob had separated the lambs, and he set the
faces of the sheep towards a ringstraked (ram LXX.) and
every brown, in the flock of Laban." The author is describ-
ing an additional plan, besides that of the rods. At any rate,
designed interpolations are made to clear up difficulties, not to
create them. The accidental creeping into the text, through
whatever agency, of a few words out of their place and only
creating confusion, is what any ancient book transmitted
through so long a succession of copyists is liable to suffer. The
parts of this chapter which Dr. Davidson assigns to the com-
piler, the Bishop of Natal leaves to the Jehovist, while he
494
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
extracts a number of clauses and brief passages which he gives
to the Elohist in connexion with those of the last chapter.
These are v. 1 first clause, 4 first clause, 5, 6 first clause, 7, 8
first and third clauses, 9-13, 17, 18 first and third clauses,
19, 20 first and third clauses, 21-24 first clause. Even if the
general outlines of the Bishop's theory were true, we might
decline on the authority of other partitionists to follow him
here.
On the other hand the Bishop, still differing from these
critics, gives only . 18 of the next chapter to the Elohist, and
assigns all the rest to the Jehovist, notwithstanding its striking
verbal Elohism, declaring that he has been unable to detect any
decisive signs of a difference in authorship, or of a break in the
connexion. In the hands of the others, however, this chapter
undergoes most minute anatomising, each of the four alleged
authors getting a share of it, in alternating clauses, sentences,
or verses, with now and then a somewhat longer passage. The
Elohist gets only r. 18.¹ His claim to it is doubtless founded
on the mention of Padan-Aram, and the resemblance to
xii. 5. It does not, however, connect itself with the last pre-
ceding Elohistic passage, xxviii. 1-9, in a satisfactory manner.
One of the minor omissions, which it is said the compiler has
made in piecing this chapter, must have taken place here, if the
Elohist's narrative had ever a self-standing existence. In
partitioning the remainder amongst the other supposed original
writers, and the compiler who put the parts together, verses and
clauses of verses are separated throughout; and it is necessary
to suppose that the compiler, who broke up the original writings
and put them together as we now find them, made several
minor omissions of matter which, no doubt, he must have found
redundant or inconvenient.² The use of the names of God has
little if anything to do with this subdivision, the improbability
1 "And be carried away all his cattle, and all his goods, which he had gotten, the
cattle of his getting which he had gotten in Padan-Aram, for to go to Isaac his
father in the land of Canaan."
2 A general view of these subdivisions will be given hereafter.
A
CH. XXIX.—XXXI.
495
of which, from its very minuteness and the gratuitous exercise
of ingenuity in putting the fragments together, which the
Redactor had first with such minuteness disjoined from their
respective documents, will satisfy perhaps most readers of the
groundlessness of this theory of the combination of several
distinct narratives. What motive could the compiler have had
in taking such trouble in thus piecing a number of disjointed
fragments? It could not have been reverence for the very
letter of the previously existing documents, as too sacred for
anything to be lost; the several omissions he is supposed to
have made, and his own additions, would prove that he had no
superstitious reverence for the documents he handled so freely.
Would not the natural, the almost certain course he would have
adopted, have been to take one as the basis, and from himself
to supply the matter furnished by the others in such form and
words as he thought fit, without attempting to dovetail minute
fragments of the other documents into that which he took as
the fundamental one? If the passage before us has on its face
the evidence of interpolation, let the editor have the credit
of it. It is absurd to find in the interpolated phrases the
ipsissima cerba of several other documents. Most readers will
probably see little reason to suspect interpolation in the docu-
ment as it stands, except what the author himself may have
subsequently added.
There is, however, a care and discrimination in the use of the
Divine appellations which indicates unity of design and author-
ship in the whole of chapter xxxi. First, in . 3, the writer
says that Jehovah spake unto Jacob. Here he is introduced as
the personal and special God of the chosen race; and this name
in a manner governs the subsequent designations of the Divine
Being. Then in v. 5 Jacob says to his wives, "I see your
father's countenance, that it is not towards me as it was before;
but the God of my father hath been with me." This latter
clause does not indeed refer to the appearance of Jehovah to
Jacob implied in v. 3, but it still refers to that Jehovistic verse,
496
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
namely to the promise, in its last clause, "I will be with thee,"
no less than it refers to the preceding v. 2, supposed to be by
the junior Elohist. The designation, "the God of my father,"
is equivalent to Jehovah, Elohim being rendered specific by the
addition; but this form is preferred for the contrast between
the Divine favour and that of Laban: "I see the face of your
father that it is not towards me as yesterday and the day before,
but the Elohim of my father hath been (or is, ,) with me.”
The protection of the God of his father is put in opposition to
the human favour of their father. The same contrast is marked
in the next verse also. Their father tried to do him wrong,
but Elohim did not suffer him; man would have injured him,
but God hindered it. So again, v. 9, it was Elohim, and not
Jacob, that took their father's cattle, the contrast being still
sustained, now between God and Jacob, as before between God
and Laban. With this contrast fresh in mind, Jacob is repre-
sented as telling, v. 11, that the angel of Elohim spake to him
in a dream; and perhaps the use of Elohim has also a further
design there, namely to indicate that this dream was a Divine
communication, and not a mere ordinary human dream. When
in relating the words of this angel of Elohim the author makes
him say,
"I am the God of Bethel," the word El is used on the
purely verbal ground that it forms the second part of the com-
pound Bethel, "I am the El of Beth-El." But the use of
Elohim in Rachel's and Leah's words, v. 16,¹ is in natural
sequence with, and reference to, its previous use. They recog-
nise the Divine interposition, as intimated by Jacob, and bid
him act on the Divine command he had received.
In the following verses a division is made, first in e. 17,2 the
latter half of which is given to the Jehovist in connexion with
v. 3, in order to make his narrative represent Jacob as taking
steps to fulfil the command of Jehovah; and then this is
joined again to the second clause of v. 19, the first clause
1 "For all the riches which Elohim hath taken from our father, that is our's and
our children's. Now then whatsoever Elohim hath said unto thee, do."
2 Then Jacob rose up, and set his sons and his wives upon camels."
CH. XXIX.—XXXI.
497
being interpolated after v. 18, which is given to the Elohist,
while v. 20 is given to the junior Elohist. The groundless-
ness of all this will appear from a careful examination of the
order of the narrative. We have seen that Jacob's wives had
just bidden him to obey the Divine command he had received
to return to his own country. In compliance with this advice,
he rises up and gathers all together, and carries it away to the
land of Canaan. How is he able to accomplish this without
opposition from Laban? That is next explained; Laban had
gone to shear his sheep. The flocks, be it remembered, had been
severed, and as Laban went to shear his sheep, Jacob would
naturally be with his own for the same purpose. And here let
the force of the tenses be properly observed. It is not, as in the
English Version, "Laban went to shear his sheep, and Rachel
had stolen the images that were her father's." It should be
"Laban had gone,”, here with the force of pluperfect, as in
the Vulgate, ierat, and “Rachel stole," this verb being fut. with
vau convers., and so implying a transaction subsequent to
Laban's departure. The conjunction rau prefixed to . 19
v.
should have an adversative force, "But Laban had gone to shear
his sheep." Then in Laban's absence Rachel stole her father's
teraphim, and Jacob stole away unknown to Laban. These
clauses, notwithstanding the Masoretic division of the verses,
stand in the closest verbal relation to one another, being con-
nected by one of those instances of play on the sound and double
senses of words so common in this book :-"Rachel stole the
teraphim that were her father's, and Jacob stole the heart of
Laban the Syrian." Connected as the clauses thus are, it is
probable that it is with reference to these teraphim that Laban
is here named "the Syrian," for which, as they are separated in
different and unconnected verses, no sufficient cause appears. It
לֵב לָבָן The words
}
עֲקְרִים נִקְדִים וּטְלָאִים
וַתִּגְנֹב רָחֵל אֶת־הַתְּרָפִים אֲשֶׁר לְאָבִיהָ י
וַיִגְנֹב יעקב אֶת־לֵב לָבָן הָאֲרַמִּי.
This is given to the
junior Elohist. We might have noticed a Jehovistic instance in xxx. 29:—
are a further instance of alliteration.
32
498
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
was as being a Syrian that Laban used these images, and the
mention of this was natural, in order that the idolatrous tendency
might not be imputed to Jacob, and so afford a bad example to
the Children of Israel. The reason why the mention of Laban
as a Syrian is deferred to the end of the second clause was, that
the words on which the play of sound and double sense is made
might for that purpose be brought nearer together, and that at
the close of the second clause there might be something to
balance the first in weight of sound. While Laban's nation is
here intimated to account for the use of teraphim, it is mentioned.
in v. 24 to imply that there was something unusual in a Divine
communication being made to one who was not of the chosen
seed, and was himself not a decided worshipper of the true God.
And so Laban himself perceived that it was not his own Elohim,
but the Elohim of Jacob's father that appeared to him, v. 29;
his own Elohim he shows in v. 30 to have been the teraphim
Rachel had stolen. The reason, however, why it was Elohim
and not Jehovah that was said to have appeared to Laban, was
to distinguish this dream as a Divine communication from a
mere ordinary and natural dream. In v. 29 there is another
instance of the play on sound and double sense, which accounts
for the use of Elohim: "It is in the El of my hand to do you
evil, but the Elohim of your father spake to me"-" it is in the
might of my hand, but the mighties of your father." The
generic Elohim becomes specific by the addition, “the Elohim
of your father," and is equivalent in the writer's view to Je-
hovah. And so in v. 42, where there appears a reference to the
Jehovistic v. 3, the Jehovah of that verse is represented by the
paraphrastic expressions, "the Elohim of Abraham, the Elohim
of my father, the fear of Isaac." This Elohim, in fulfilment of
the promise of v. 3, has been with Jacob, else Laban would have
sent him away empty. But the Elohim of the latter clause,
"Elohim hath seen my affliction," is emphatic; it was God
that rebuked Laban the night before, not any remorse of his
own conscience, or any imagination of his own mind.
CH. XXIX.-XXXI.
499
(C
In v. 49 Laban says, "Jehovah watch between us," not as if
it were implied that Laban was in any special sense a wor-
shipper of Jehovah, but because he knew that Jacob would not
heed an appeal to any other God but the God of his fathers,
who is described by this name.
But in the next verse it is
Elohim, because of the contrast between God and man : no
man is with us, see, God is witness between me and thee." In
v. 53 Elohim is rendered specific in different senses by several
additions, in accordance with Laban's polytheistic conceptions.
Anxious to bind Jacob more strongly by an oath, and with the
view of embracing in the adjuration his own hereditary Elohim,
he says, "The Elohim of Abraham, the Elohim of Nahor, bet
judges betwixt us, the Elohim of their father." The verb
"judge," D, is plural here, not from the plural form or
sense of Elohim, but from the mention of several Elohims,
whether regarded as numerically different, or as different in
the relations between the different persons named and the one
Elohim, several in regard to these several relations. Jacob,
however, only recognises one, and swears "by the fear of his
father Isaac." It thus appears that throughout this chapter, as
far as the names of God are concerned, there is a great unity of
conception, and a nice discrimination in their use, that marks
unity of authorship; while the narrative itself is so well con-
nected, and so free from any needless redundancy, that its reso-
lution into fragments of four different authors is a most uncalled-
for proceeding, and wholly unwarranted by anything on the
face of the documents, and in parts contradicted by the relation
of the separated fragments.
As regards the names of God in these chapters, the LXX.
differ from the Hebrew in some of their readings, having in
two instances kúpios ỏ beòs, where the Hebrew has simply
Jehovah, and in two other instances, where the Hebrew also
has Jehovah, using eòs alone.¹
1 A great difficulty of a chronological nature is made by Davidson, p. 68, 69, in
reference to the period of Jacob's stay in Mesopotamia. He endeavours to show that
500
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
§ 4. (3.) CH. XXXII., XXXIII. 1-17. JACOB'S RETURN AND MEETING
WITH ESAU. ELOHISTIC WITH ONE JEHOVISTIC EXCEPTION.
THIS passage contains an account of Jacob's meeting with
his brother Esau on the way to his former home, and of his
encounter with God at Penuel. It is given entirely by the
Bishop of Natal to the Jehovist, but is divided amongst the
several alleged authors by others as follows:-The two first
verses mentioning the meeting of Jacob with the host of God
at Mahanaim are given to the junior Elohist; from thence to
?. 22 is assigned to the Jehovist. The first clause of 221 is
interpolated by the Redactor, with what motive it would be
hard to say. It is true the previous verse concludes with the
statement that Jacob lodged that night with his company, and
the next words, " and he rose up that night," may seem rather
at variance with that. The variance is only seeming, as he
may have lodged during the early part of the night, and risen
towards the conclusion of it. At any rate this seeming dis-
crepancy is the best evidence against the interpolation of the
suspected clause. So ingenious an editor as this Redactor
would never have written these words; his object would have
been to remove rather than to create a difficulty. The re-
mainder of this verse, except the last clause, is given to the
according to some parts of the narrative Jacob must have remained there for fifty
years, while by other parts his stay was only twenty. The difficulty is all created by
the supposition that Jacob's departure to Syria was soon after the marriage of Esau
with his Hittite wives, namely, when they were both forty years of age. The narra-
tive implies no such immediate sequence in regard to time. It was not until there
had been a sufficient interval at any rate for Rebekah to have grown so weary of her
life because of the daughters of Heth, xxvii. 46, that she suggested to Isaac that
Jacob should go to Syria to seek a wife. Moreover, the commencement of ch. xxvii.
implies an interruption of the immediate sequence of the events related.
It is not,
as in a narrative of events immediately following each other, "and Jacob was old
and his eyes were dim," but 71, which is rightly translated, "It came to pass
that," a form of expresssion which denotes an interruption of the near sequence of
events, and implies a considerable interval. An interval of thirty-seven years will
satisfy all the chronological requirements of the book.
1
And he rose up that night, and took his two wives, and his two women-
servants, and his cleven sons, and passed over the ford Jabbok." The word nn,
though considered by the Bishop an Elohistic mark, is here applied to Billah and
Zilpah in a passage which he gives to the Jehovist. They are called by this name
here, as there is no reference to the closer relation than that of women-servants.
CH. XXXII., XXXIII. 1-17.
501
Jehovist, the last clause being assigned to the junior Elohist.
Then the words of v. 23,1" and he took them," or rather the
single word thus rendered, being interpolated by the Redactor,
the remainder of that verse is given to the Jehovist. The
Redactor again interpolates the word "alone," in v. 24,2 while
the junior Elohist finishes this verse. Then, again, the Re-
dactor supplies v. 25 containing the story of the dislocation of
Jacob's thigh, as well as the last clause of v. 31 and v. 32, which
refer to this circumstance, the intervening part being the work
of the junior Elohist. Now the seeming inconsistency between
t. 22 and 23, on which these interpolations of the compiler
are founded, vanishes when the ambiguity of the word y
is taken into account. This word signifies not merely a brook,
but also a valley or hollow which has a brook running through
it. It should here be rendered "the valley" or hollow. First
Jacob takes all his family by night and crosses the ford; then he
takes them and sends them all across the valley, and remains
himself by the ford. For the LXX. have xeiμáppovs, a word
which well agrees with what has just been said. For in the rainy
season the hollow would be full of water, and the brook would
be a torrent which could not be passed, while in the dry season
the brook would be a shallow stream, and the hollow would be
rather a dry valley, that would present a considerable space of
ground between the banks and the stream. Of course it was
not at a season when the ford would be impassable and the
hollow full, that Jacob took across his family and cattle, but at
such a season as would have left this space dry between the
banks and the brook. Thus all difficulty vanishes when the
nature of the Eastern wady is taken into consideration. The
story of the dislocation of Jacob's thigh is assigned to the Re-
dactor, which seems intended to remove a difficulty in the way
of regarding this account of the change of Jacob's name to
1 "And he took them and sent them over the brook, and sent over all that he had."
"And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled with him a man, until the
breaking of the day."
302
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
Israel, and that contained in xxxv., as only different versions
of the same transaction. So serious an addition as that in
question, would seem to negative this supposition. Hence to
get rid of this difficulty in the way of the theory, the Redactor
is brought in to invent this story, or to supply it from popular
tradition. But this is a purely gratuitous assumption. The
remainder of the section, xxxiii. 1–17, is given to the Jehovist,
the narrative being considered in sequence with the early part
of xxxii., which was attributed to the Jehovist.
As regards the use of the names of God in this passage, it is
said at the commencement, that when Jacob went on his way
from Laban the angels of Elohim met him, and that when he
saw them he said, "This is Elohim's host." Whenever, through-
out the book angels of God are mentioned in the plural number,
Elohim is the word used for God. The angel of Jehovah was
a singular manifestation of God himself. As Hengstenberg
remarks of the angels of Elohim on the ladder in Jacob's dream,
they are called angels of Elohim to distinguish them from
human angels or messengers of men. If angels alone were
mentioned, the term would be ambiguous. Angels of God”
describes whose messengers they were. Hence the general term
Elohim, which stands in opposition to men on so many occasions,
is properly used. Thus the Elohistic character of the commence-
ment is accounted for. The next mention of God is when Jacob,
apprehensive of his brother's revenge, prays in c. 9 to the Elohim
of his father Isaac, the Elohim of his father Abraham, Jehovah
who had bid him return to his own country. Here each term
holds its own proper place and character, one as a general teru
rendered specific by the addition of the genitives, the other as a
proper and personal name in apposition therewith. The next
mention of God is in the reason assigned for changing the name
of Jacob to Israel. Since Jehovah was not yet in use for the
formation of proper names, as already observed, El was the only
name used for this purpose. Hence in giving the reason for
the name of Israel, "as a prince thou hast power with God and
(C
CH. XXXII., XXXIII. 1-17.
503
*
with men," Jehovah would be quite out of place, while Elohim,
which contains the radical El, its shorter counterpart, is quite
in its proper place. But besides its appropriateness on this
purely verbal ground, it is also suitable in respect of the contrast
between God and man, as Hengstenberg notes. If a particular
man was specified, the proper name of God might not have been
inappropriate, as if it had been said that he had prevailed with
Jehovah and with Esau. The generic term in the one case
would necessitate the generic term in the other, apart from the
verbal ground for the use of Elohim. The answer to Jacob's
enquiry, what was the name of the person that wrestled with
him, "Wherefore is it that thou dost ask after my name?
does not imply that there was any mystery about it, or that God
had any unwillingness to tell him. It merely intimates that
Jacob needed to be at no loss to know who it was, especially
after the reason assigned for giving to Jacob himself the name
of Israel. And accordingly Jacob at once concluded that it was
God, and called the place Peniel, saying, "for I have seen Elohim
face to face," in which words the same verbal reason for the use
of Elohim exists as before in regard to the name Israel. So far,
the names employed in this passage are readily accounted for
from the nature and proper use of each. Then in the subsequent
communication between Jacob and Esau, it would have been very
unsuitable to the occasion to have made Jacob attribute his family
and wealth in c. 5 and 11 specially to Jehovah. As this would
have seemed to lay claim to his special favour as the tutelary
God of the family, and the enjoyment of his care attendant on
the possession of the birthright, and on the blessing of Isaac
which had been surreptitiously obtained, it would have been most
unfitting to the occasion to have made Jacob thus suggest to
Esau's recollection the very cause of quarrel; and we may
readily perceive that a writer equally accustomed to the use
of either name would have chosen Elohim here as most suited
to his purpose.
For the reason of the use of Elohim in v. 10,
I have seen thy face as though I had seen the face of Elohim,"
504
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
it will be necessary to refer to the scene at Penuel. That scenc
was the answer to Jacob's prayer, offered for deliverance from
Esau in apprehension of immediate hostilities, and of the destruc-
tion of his family. Whatever further and deeper meaning that
scene may have had, the immediate design was plainly to en-
courage Jacob in regard to these apprehensions. He wrestles
with a person over whom he prevails, who turns out to be God,
and from whom he obtains a blessing. His name is changed to
Israel, because he has power with God and with men, and has
prevailed with God in obtaining a favourable answer to his
prayer, with men in the averting of Esau's wrath. He calls the
place in consequence Peniel, because he has seen God face to
face and yet his life is preserved, the common notion having
been that to see the face of God would be fatal, a notion of
which it is unnecessary to adduce any of the numerous evidences
that occur in the early books of the Bible. This scene having
been vouchsafed in answer to Jacob's prayer, he could not but
perceive its significance; and when Esau meets him with kind-
ness, nothing is more natural than that it should recur forcibly
to his mind, and suggest the remark that he had seen Esau's
face, as though he had seen the face of Elohim,' and yet Esau
was favourable to him, and the anticipated destruction was not
inflicted. This reference to the scene at Penuel necessitates
the use of Elohim, as having been employed in the account of
that transaction. Hengstenberg entirely overlooks this reference,
and mistranslates the conjunctions, as if Jacob urged
Esau to accept his present, because for this purpose, namely
that he might offer the present, he had ventured into his dreaded
presence, as one would venture to see the face of a God with
the apprehension of dying in consequence. Understanding
Elohim here as equivalent to "the heavenly powers," he says
Jehovah would be simply inadmissible. But why so? Would
1 To make the verbal reference to Peniel more evident seems to have been the
reason why the article is omitted, though by the reference the expression is definite
in its signification. The words are Penay Elohim, not Penay Ha-Elohim.
CH. XXXIII. 18, XXXIV.
505
not the argument have been stronger if he had used a name
that would have excluded any subordinate heavenly power?
Besides, these particles, as above united, do not mean "because
for this purpose," but simply because. Out of numerous instances
of this combination, the only place where such a rendering
would be admissible as regards sense is Gen. xviii. 5, rendered
in our Version, "for therefore are ye come to your servant."
But it would be much more natural to have invited the angels to
take food simply because they had come, than to have intimated
to them that they had come in order to obtain it. At any rate,
this instance is not such as to justify a departure from the
general meaning of the expression. Gen. xix. 8 is not in favour
of such a rendering, though it is thus translated in the English
Version. The angels had not come under Lot's roof in order
to obtain protection, having even declined his invitation at
first; and however natural it would have been to plead the
rights of hospitality ("unto these men do nothing, because they
have come under the shadow of my roof"), it would have been
absurd to claim safety for them, because they had come to him
to seek it. The LXX. have eveKeV TOUTOU here, their conception
seeming to have been, that Jacob accounts for Esau's kindly
reception of him by reason of his having sent the present before
him, whereby Esau was propitiated, and therefore Jacob now
urges him to accept it, as having been propitiated by the offer
of it already implied. By this way of understanding the
expression, the reference to the scene at Penuel is not lost, as it
is entirely by Hengstenberg's explanation. It thus appears that
through the entire of this Elohistic portion there is not a single
instance in which Jehovah might properly be substituted for
Elohim by a writer equally accustomed to the use of both. The
LXX. are conformable to the Hebrew in the use of these names.
§ 5. CH. XXXIII. 18, xxxiv. JACOB AT SHECHEM AND THE STORY OF
DINAH. ELOHISTIC.
THE preceding section concluded with a statement that after
506
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
the interview between Jacob and Esau, Esau returned that day
on his way to Seir, and Jacob journeyed to Succoth, where he
built an house, and made booths for his cattle. This implies a
somewhat permanent settlement on the east of Jordan, and
therefore not properly in the land of Canaan. What reasons
may have determined his stay there for any length of time we
are not told; but there is no inconsistency in this delay with
his intention of going to his father Isaac. From Succoth he
could without difficulty visit him in his own person, while he
left his establishment there, the moving of that being, no doubt,
his great difficulty. As Dinah was not over six years of age at
the return from Haran, some time must, at any rate, have
elapsed, whether spent at Succoth, or at the place to which
Jacob next moved, before the transactions in ch. xxxiv. could
have taken place. But as Succoth was not in the land of
Canaan, when the new section announces Jacob's removal to
Shechem, the introductory statement mentions this as in the
land of Canaan, while in the usual recapitulatory manner it
says
that he came there on his return from Padan-Aram. That
return was already described, but now he is for the first time in
the land of Canaan since he left Laban.¹
The Bishop of Natal gives the entire of this section to the
Jehovist, in which he tells us he is at variance with Delitzsch
and Knobel, who have given the story of Dinah to the Elohist,
and with Bochmer, who partitions as follows:-. 17 of xxxiii.
having been given to the compiler, the words "when he came
from Padan-Aram" in e. 18, and r. 19, are joined to it, as by
the compiler also, and then in xxxiv. every sentence that relates
to Dinah's defilement, or implies her having been domiciled
with the Shechemites, is also supposed to have been interpolated
by him in the Jehovistic story of the violence of Simeon and
1 Keil's supposition that Shalem, which the Versions make the name of a place to
which Jacob came, was not the name of a city at all, but should be rendered peace-
ful, or in peace, with an allusion to xxviii. 21, Shechem itself being the city to
which he came, seems extremely dubious. At any rate, the allusion to xxviii. 21
would be more appropriate in describing the return finally to his father's house.
CH. XXXIII. 18, XXXIV.
507
Levi against the Shechemites.
The mention of Padan-Aram
in xxxiii. 18 is given to the compiler that the Jehovist should
not use this name. The Bishop, indeed, says that in this case
the Jehovist used the name in imitation of the Elohist; if so it
is not the distinctive mark it is said to be. There was nothing,
however, to suggest this clause to a compiler, as there was
no question whence Jacob had come, the only reason for the
mention of this particular being the usual repetition in the
introduction of a section, designed here as a general indication
of time. The omission of the sentences relating to Dinah's
defilement does not render the story in any way more consistent
or natural, while it leaves the cruel treachery of Simeon and Levi
without cause, and the adoption of circumcision by the Shechem-
ites without a motive. It is true that in Jacob's dying address
to his sons he makes no allusion to the cause of the treachery he
so strongly reprobates, but as this cause, though a provocation,
was not a justification, or even an excuse, it is quite intelligible.
that he should not have weakened the force of his censure by
alluding to an occurrence that must, under any circumstances,
have been a painful subject of recollection. The assigning, there-
fore, of these particulars to the compiler is quite groundless. The
Bishop remarks on the expression in xxxiv. 6," he had wrought
folly in Israel-and so it should not be done," that the former
phrase is a mere reflection of the later age in which this passage
was written," and both almost identical with 2 Sam. xiii. 12, "it
is not so done in Israel, do not this folly." Pt. V. p. 224, Note.
The word is not properly folly, but disgrace, or a disgraceful
deed, doxnμov, LXX.; and though the use of Israel here as a
national designation would have been an anachronism, if put
into the mouth of any of the persons to whom the narrative
relates, it was quite natural in the writer, at whatever time he
lived. Surely if this expression had been familiar in David's
time, as occurring in this book of earlier and sacred origin, it
would have been nothing extraordinary that Tamar should
have borrowed the phrases as here given; and their occurrence
CC
:
508
:
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
in 2 Sam. is rather a proof of the pre-existence of, and familiar
acquaintance with, the book of Genesis in David's time.
The only mention of God in this section is where Jacob is
said to have erected an altar at Shalem, and "called it El-
Elohe-Israel," as it is in the English Version. If this be the
meaning, we cannot understand El as denoting God, or mighty,
as if the altar was called God, the God of Israel, or the mighty
God of Israel. In such case we should regard El as a prepo-
sition, and suppose that the altar bore the title, "To the God
of Israel." The LXX., however, took a different view of the
matter, and rendered simply ἐπικαλέσατο τὸν θεὸν Ἰσραήλ.
According to this we should render, "invoked on it El, the
Elohim of Israel," and it is an instance like others already
noticed of a localised worship under particular titles, as El-
Elion, El-Olam, El-Bethel. Here we might indeed have had
"Jehovah, the Elohim of Israel," but El seems to have been
adopted with reference to the name Israel, of which it forms a
part. On the other hand, "El, Jehovah of Israel," would have
been impossible, as no other Jehovah was ever imagined to have
existed.
§ 6. CH. XXI. 1–8. RETURN TO BETHEL, ELOHISTIC.
7. Ca. xx. 9-29. RENEWAL OF THE NAME ISRAEL SUNDRY
PARTICULARS TILL THE DEATH OF ISAAC. ELOHISTIC.
THESE passages, forming separate subsections, as already
shown, have been subjected to the same partition amongst the
several supposed authors, as some of the others which have been
considered. It had been assumed that the scene at Bethel
contained in ch. xxvii., where Jacob was represented as giving
the name of Bethel to the place of his dream, and that in XXL,
where he was first called Israel, are only different accounts of the
same transaction as that related in this chapter, 9-15, where he
again receives the name of Israel, and again gives the name
of Bethel to the scene of his vision. In order to bear out this
1
3
ויִּקְרָא־לוֹ אֵל אֱלֹהֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל.
CH. XXXV. 1–8.
509
XXXV. 9-29.
<
assumption, it is necessary to expunge from the original narra-
tive in the present chapter ascribed to the Elohist every allusion
to the particulars related in ch. xxviii. Accordingly, as on all
such occasions, the compiler comes in, and finding, as it is alleged,
amongst his materials narratives sufficiently different in respect
of time and other circumstances to stand as separate parts of
the consecutive history he was compiling, notwithstanding the
coincidence of the two main particulars respecting the names of
Israel and Bethel, he supplies what is wanted to make these
narratives form separate and substantial parts of the history.
On the supposition that the story in ch. xxviii. is by the junior
Elohist, and that the mention of Jacob's return to Bethel in this
chapter, and the allusion to God's appearance to him there,
v. 6, 7, is by the same writer, the compiler invents and interposes
before these verses the story of God's command to Jacob to
return to Bethel, and of Jacob's purgation of his family from
strange gods, r. 1-4, introducing from the Jehovist v. 5, which
mentions the fear of molesting Jacob that prevailed amongst the
surrounding tribes. This is ascribed to the Jehovist, because
the slaughter of the Shechemites being attributed to him, the
mention of the fear which hindered the neighbouring tribes
from pursuing Jacob is thought to fall in well with that narra-
tive. But as regards the previous verses, if it is allowable to
bring in an editor who invented and interpolated everything
that would else be inconvenient to the hypothesis which is to
be maintained, of course it is easy enough to make any theory
good. The Redactor also gets the credit of the last clause
of v. 7, and of v. 8, describing the death and burial of Deborah,
Rebekah's nurse, and he interposes in r. 9 the word "again,
where it is said that " God appeared again to Jacob when he came
out of Padan-Aram," this and the following verses being given
to the Elohist on account of this name Padan-Aram. But if the
Redactor dealt in such wholesale invention and interpolation, he
may as well have invented other parts of the history ascribed to
others of the supposed authors, and the credit of the entire theory
510
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
is thus invalidated. At any rate, he had no motive to invent
the introductory verses of this chapter, or the story of Deborah's
death. The narrative ascribed to the Elohist would fall into its.
place in the history just as well without these additions; they
do not in any way tend to explain the difficulty of the second
giving of the names Israel and Bethel, which alone he would
have felt it necessary to account for, if he wished to make two
versions of the same transaction stand as descriptions of different
events. This, at any rate, was the only circumstance that could
have seemed to require his interposition. That it did not really
require it will be seen presently; meanwhile the Redactor's
hand must be traced to the close of the chapter, as well as the
parts ascribed to the other authors. Having brought the
Elohist down to the close of r. 15, the Redactor then says
"And they journeyed from Bethel," in order to bring in the Je-
hovistic account of the birth of Benjamin, which commences
with saying that "there was but a little way to come to Eph-
rath," and ends with e. 21. This Jehovistic portion, which is
thus allotted because the Jehovist has the birth of the other
children of Jacob, is interpolated by the Redactor with the
words, "that is the pillar of Rachel's grave unto this day,"
these words having somewhat of the appearance of a gloss.
The existence of such glosses taken into the text has been
thought possible by all critics; there is no necessity of supposing
it here, as an original writer might naturally appeal to a monu-
ment existing in his day. At any rate, a compiler to do
wilfully what has often happened accidentally in the course.
of transcription is an uncalled-for and unwarranted supposition.
The junior Elohist now comes in and relates the story of
Reuben's misconduct, which the Jehovist, according to this
theory, refers to in xlix. 4, without any previous mention being
made of this transaction in the Jehovistic parts; and then the
junior Elohist enumerates the twelve sons of Jacob, thus getting
their names into his narrative, and saving the Jehovist from the
use of the name Padan-Aram in . 26. Equally arbitrary is
CH. XXXV. 1-8.
511
XXXV. 9-29.
the way
in which the three last verses are dealt with. The
Elohist, besides the two last verses of the chapter, is supposed
to have written at r. 27 "And Jacob came to Isaac his father
to the city of Arbah, that is Hebron." The Jehovist had also
written "And Jacob came to Mamre where Abraham and Isaac
sojourned." Out of both, the existing . 27 is formed by the
Redactor. The ages and deaths of the Patriarchs being given
for the most part to the Elohist, he is made to bring Jacob back
to Isaac; and the Jehovist's account of Jacob's journeyings is
also made more complete by bringing him back as well. The
Bishop of Natal ascribes the enumeration of the twelve sons of
Jacob to the Elohist, who he supposes had described the birth of
Benjamin after that of Joseph in ch. xxx., the Jehovist having
expunged that in order to introduce the more graphic account
of his birth in this chapter, and thus produced a discrepancy,
as r. 26 represents all the sons of Jacob to have been born in
Padan-Aram. The discrepancy exists in words; it is like call-
ing the Apostles the twelve after Judas had left them, and like the
enumeration of Hezron and Hamul amongst the sons of Jacob
who went down into Egypt, though afterwards born in Egypt.
In the present case the exception is merged in the general.
Had Benjamin come last as the youngest, this would not have
happened; but having been placed before the sons of Bilhah and
Zilpah, the birth of Benjamin in the land of Canaan came not
to be excepted from the birth of the family in general in Padan-
Aram, as mentioned at the close of the list.
It is plain that with all this subdivision the names of God
have nothing to do, this passage being exclusively Elohistic.
The first Elohim, e. 1, if not quite casual, or suggested by the
El of Bethel to be just after mentioned, may be understood to
indicate that it was a Divine intimation which determined Jacob
to go to Bethel. His own perception of the necessity of the
case would have made him determine to quit Shalem. In his
settlement there he seems almost to have forgotten his vow
recorded in ch. xxviii., and to have lost all thought of going
512
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
back to Bethel in fulfilment of it. Now being driven from his
resting place, and obliged to move, God brings back to his
memory what he had himself been willing to forget. Hence
the name Elohim at the commencement is accounted for, the
object being only to express the Divine source of the command
to go to Bethel. The El that appeared to him when he fled
from the face of Esau was Jehovah, xxviii. 13, the El of Bethel,
to which Jacob is bid to go. For this etymological reason, the
name El would naturally be used, especially as Bethel was not
yet an established proper name, but merely "the house of El"
to Jacob himself. He, is bid go to that house of El and build
an altar to the El() that had appeared to him there. To this
reason there is to be added, as regards the use of the same word
in v. 3, the contrast between this El and the strange Elohim
that Jacob bids his household put away, as a reason for using
the general term El in preference to Jehovah. The earrings
mentioned in connection with the strange gods were doubtless
of an idolatrous character. It being part of the theory that
articles of luxury are attributed by the Jehovist alone to patri-
archal times, with the simplicity of which they are alleged to
have been inconsistent, as if the contemporaneous civilisation
of Egypt did not render the use of such things highly probable
in neighbouring countries also, the occurrence of earrings in so
purely Elohistic a passage as the present might be alleged as
an exception to the Jehovistic character of such representations.
This objection is met by saying that in the present passage it is
due to the compiler (Davidson, p. 28). But as the passage is
only given to the Redactor to help another part of the theory,
as already noticed, this mode of obviating the objection is
inadmissible. When, having purged his family from their
idolatry, Jacob sets out for Bethel, it is said, v. 5, that a terror
of God, not the terror as in the English Version, was upon the
cities around, so that they did not pursue after Jacob. The
slaughter of the Shechemites having been given to the Jehovist,
this is also given to him as accounting for Jacob being allowed
CH. XXXV. 1-8.
513
XXXV. 9-29.
to go without opposition. Its commencement, "and they
journeyed," being but the single word y, connects itself,
however, very abruptly with the conclusion of ch. xxxiv. in
which, though Jacob complains of his uncomfortable position
at Shalem, yet nothing is said of his intention of removing;
whereas it comes in quite naturally after the earlier verses of
this chapter. The expression, "a terror of Elohim," if not a
superlative, is designed to indicate the source or cause of the
fear. It was not Jacob they were afraid of, but God, who was
supposed to have him under special protection; or the fear was
produced by Elohim. In either case Elohim is the proper
word, as marking the contrast between the Divine and human.
Next, when Jacob comes to Bethel, he raises an altar and calls.
the place, according to the English Version, El-Bethel. The
LXX. translate similarly, but omit the first El. Retaining
this, it is better to translate," he invoked on the place the El of
Bethel." In the reason assigned for this, "because there the
Elohim were revealed to him," Elohim is used as a plural noun
with a plural verb, not because it denotes merely the angels
who appeared upon the ladder, but because taken generically,
and in a larger sense, it here includes both the angels and
Jehovah, who was at the summit of the ladder, "the heavenly
powers," as Hengstenberg would translate it.
The introduction of the death and burial of Rebekah's nurse,
between this and the mention of God's appearance to Jacob at
Bethel in the verse next following, is so unconnected with the
subject in v. 7 and v. 9, that without any such statement in his
materials, a compiler would never have thought of interposing it
here. As the production of a narrator who tells each particular
in its proper order, it comes in its place, after the arrival at
Bethel, but before the appearance of God to Jacob there. And
the apparent awkwardness of its mention with such little con-
nexion with the adjacent particulars vanishes, when we perceive
that it is introduced just at the close of one section, and before
the commencement of another, where there was a break in the
33
514
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
continuity of the writer's thoughts, as already noticed at p. 337.
On the other hand, though the want of connexion with the
subject matter might be an argument for an accidental interpo-
lation in the course of transcription, it is an argument against
a designed interpolation. In this particular instance a person,
who was trying, as supposed, to interweave into a consecutive
narrative the materials supplied by different writers, would
never from himself have added what was so wholly unconnected
with the matter in hand. Even if he wished to introduce a
tradition that Deborah was buried at Bethel, and thus to
account for the local name Allon-Bachuth, he would have
chosen a more convenient place for it. The Bishop of Natal,
who gives all that precedes this to the Jehovist, adds to the
want of connexion with the context, the great age that Re-
bekah's nurse must have attained at this time, and the impro-
bability that she should have been with Jacob, and not with
Isaac. But it is not said at all that she was with Jacob when
she died, or that it was Jacob and his people that buried her.
On the contrary, this is avoided by the use of the passive verb,
"she was buried." The difficulty of the age is not greater than in
the case of the other members of these households, if we suppose
the death to have taken place at this time, and not in the interval
after Jacob's flight, with which, as what was last mentioned,
the fut. with vau conversive might be in sequence. It is even
probable that the mention of this, and of the name which was
given to Deborah's burial place, might have been introduced in
this place with special reference to the name of Bethel. Luz
was its original name; the Abrahamic family had associated
another name with the place in consequence of Deborah's
burial, but now both names are to be superseded by Bethel.
In the mention of God's renewed appearance to Jacob at
Bethel, it has been observed by Hengstenberg, that Elohim,
as standing in connexion both with Israel and Bethel, is used
on etymological grounds. The use of the name El-Shaddai in
v. 11 is attributable to the reference to ch. xvii., from which
CH. XXXV. 1-8. XXXV. 9-29..
515
this verse is adopted, and to Isaac's prayer for Jacob at his
departure, xxviii. 3, also taken from the same source. The
omission of Ti, "again," in . 9, to make this account only a
different version of former particulars, is so arbitrary and un-
justifiable on any critical grounds, that it must be refused. The
occurrence at the time of Jacob's wrestling is represented as
having taken place at a wholly different place, a place too
which received its name, Penuel, from that occurrence. That
Jacob's new name, Israel, should not have become fully adopted,
after that first communication of it, is what might be supposed
very likely to happen. The slackening of his religious appre-
hensions, which led him to rest without returning at once to
Bethel, and to allow idolatrous practices in his family, would
naturally account for an indifference as to the assuming the
name of Israel. If this were only a different version of the
former transaction by another hand, it is to be supposed that it
would at any rate have had some explanation of the reason of
the name. The absence of this implies that Jacob was already
aware of its cause and import. The re-imposition of the name
of Bethel, which previously had only been imposed in Jacob's
own thoughts, is in manifest fulfilment of the vow, xxviii. 22.
If he should be brought back in peace to his father's house, the
pillar he set up there was to be the house of Elohim. The con-
dition of the vow has now been fulfilled, he is at Bethel again,
and on the point of being re-united with his father; he now
finally calls the place Bethel, the house of God, as he had vowed
it should be. It was called so before as it were conditionally;
it is now so absolutely and finally. The former transaction
requires the present, without which there would be an unsatis-
fied vacuity in the narrative; the present is the proper comple-
ment of the former, and supplies the vacancy that else would
exist. Everything tends to confirm the distinctness of the
transactions, and to establish, instead of throwing doubt on,
the unity and integrity of the narrative as it stands. The
Bishop's difficulty in regard to the word "again" is that the
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
516
Elohist who gets this passage had described no previous appear-
ance to Jacob, and he is driven to the supposition, that he meant
to represent this as the second appearance of God to any of the
Patriarchs! Instead of this, which the place of the adverb con-
tradicts, he should in fairness say, here is an Elohistic reference
to an event told by one of the supposed later writers. The men-
tion of Padan-Aram in connexion with this may be accounted for,
either by understanding the word "again" to have referred to
the former appearance at Bethel when he was going to Padan-
-Aram, God appearing to him now again on his coming back to
Bethel from Padan-Aram; or the reference might be to the
appearance at Penuel; now again, the second time on his return
from Padan-Aram God appeared to him. The former seems
however, far preferable. The promise in 11, 12 is simply taken
from xvii., and adds nothing to the Elohistic characteristics.
Except in the variation in regard to El-Shaddai already men-
tioned, the LXX. agree with the Hebrew in the use of the
Divine appellations in this passage.
X. THE GENERATIONS OF ESAU.
CH. XXXVI. 1-8. TO ESAU'S PARTING FROM JACOB. NO NAME OF
GOD.
THIS brief section takes us back to the marriages of Esau.
The difference in the names of Esau's wives here given, as
compared with those mentioned in xxvi. 34, and xxviii. 9, has
been thought to show that these accounts have proceeded from
different authors. In order to account for the discrepancy
being allowed to exist by the person who interwove the history
as it now stands, Davidson supposes that his Redactor exercised
a moderate control over his materials. "It is easy to account
for the discrepancy on the hypothesis of a Redactor having two
or more documents independently composed, and exercising on
the whole a moderate degree of control over their contents."
Introd. I. p. 67. He should have said, only a very moderate
degree of control; for if the compiler ventured to exercise any,
CH. XXXVI. 1-8.
517
it is hard to believe that he would have observed such absti-
nence, as not to bring the two accounts into literal and exact
agreement. However the difference may have originated, the
supposition of a compiler who exercised any degree of control
over his materials, and yet allowed the difference to remain,
and who, if he introduced the words, "daughter of Zibeon,
in v. 2, embarrassed matters in a still greater degree, is
scarcely credible. A much more natural and simple explana-
tion of the difficulty may readily be imagined, though of course.
any explanation must be more or less conjectural. In xxvi. 34
Esau is said to have taken to wife Judith, the daughter of
Beeri the Hittite, and Basemath, the daughter of Elon the
Hittite. As regards the first of these, no single particular
agrees with the names in the present passage, by which she
might be identified with any of those here mentioned; there is
no Hittite but Elon, no Judith nor Beeri. Supposing that this
wife had no offspring, her name would probably be omitted in
"The generations of Esau" setting forth his descendants, while
another wife may have been taken, subsequently to the union
with the daughter of Ishmael mentioned in ch. xxviii., so that
three are still enumerated, though one may have been passed
over in silence. Then as to Basemath, the daughter of Elon
the Hittite, there can be no question that she is the same called
Adah, the daughter of Elon the Hittite in ch. xxxvi. As in
this latter place another Basemath is mentioned, the first
Basemath is probably called by a second name, whether
adopted for distinction or otherwise. Then in ch. xxviii. we
are told that Esau, seeing that the daughters of Canaan did not
please his father, and that Isaac had sent Jacob to his own
family for a wife, went and took to wife Mahalath, the daughter
of Ishmael, and sister of Nebaioth. Now as Isaac was one
hundred and thirty-seven years of age at this time, and Ishmael's
age when he died was one hundred and thirty-seven years, the
latter must have now been from thirteen to fourteen years dead.
Hence when it is said Esau went to Ishmael, this must only
""
518
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
mean the Ishmaelites. Moreover, supposing this Mahalath to
have been only forty years old when Esau married her, she
must still have been born when Ishmael was one hundred and
eleven, if his immediate daughter. But then this Mahalath
appears as Basemath in ch. xxxvi., and perhaps the difficulty
as to the double names, and that occasioned by the ages just
indicated, might be avoided by supposing the original reading
in both places to have been "Basemath, the daughter of
Mahalath, the daughter of Ishmael," and that one name has
slipped out of one place, and the other name from the other place.¹
The reason why this Basemath would, on such a supposition,
have been traced through her mother, would have been to show
her connexion with Ishmael, the design of Esau in marrying
her having been apparently to please his father by this con-
nexion. We now come to the third wife mentioned in this
chapter, "Aholibamah, the daughter of Anah, the daughter of
Zibeon the Hivite," as described in v. 2 and in v. 14. In v. 20 ff.
we have amongst the sons of Seir the Horite a Zibeon and an
Anah. This Zibeon has a son Anah, and Zibeon's brother, the
duke Anah, has a daughter Aholibamah. Plainly this is the
wife of Esau, the connexion thus formed with the family of
Seir being the motive of Esau's removal to Seir. This Aho-
libamah being evidently the daughter of the duke Anah, not of
the Anah who was Zibeon's son, a question arises as to the
connexion with Zibeon in v. 2 and 14. The LXX. and the
Samaritan text both read "the son" of Zibeon, instead of "the
daughter," in each verse. This was probably, however, only
the result of an endeavour to remove the difficulty by the sup-
position that Aholibamah, Esau's wife, was daughter of the Anah
*
1
4
1 The similarity of terminations in the Hebrew would lead naturally to such an
Five-of these words in succession אֶת־בָּשְׂמַת בַּת־מָחֲלַת בַּת־יִשְׁמָעֵאל: omission
end with, four of them with, and two of them are na, besides that the two
proper names end with the syllables and 2, which are in a manner connected
by the two liquids, which are next one another in the order of the alphabet. The
Samaritan copies read Mahalath for Basemath in eh. xxxvi., which falls in with the
supposition that both existed in the original text.
CH. XXXVI. 1-8.
519
that found the mules or hot springs. May not the duke Anah's
daughter have been by her mother a daughter of Zibeon?
Zibeon's brother Anah might have married his niece, as took
place in the case of Abraham and Sarah, and thus Aholibamah
would have been both daughter of Anah, and likewise daughter,
or granddaughter, as the word also means, of Zibeon. As in .
2, where Basemath is called "the daughter of Ishmael, the
sister of Nebaioth," sister is in apposition, not with Ishmael,
but with daughter and Basemath, and as in v. 14, when
Aholibamah is called "the daughter of Anah, the daughter of
Zibeon, the wife of Esau," wife is in apposition with Aho-
libamah and the first daughter, so the second daughter both in
2 and in 14 may be taken in apposition with the first daughter
and Aholibamah. She was daughter of Anah, and through her
mother daughter of Zibeon.¹ It is unnecessary to read "the
Horite" for "the Hivite" in v. 2, as some have thought should
be done. The Horites may have been originally Hivites, and
indeed it is expressly said that Esau took his wives from the
daughters of Canaan in v. 2, i.e., Adah and Aholibamah, the order
of time being disturbed to separate the daughter of Ishmael from
these daughters of Canaan. Perhaps these conjectures are a more
natural solution of the difficulty than the supposition of a com-
piler who used the freedom that is attributed to him in dealing
with his materials elsewhere, yet left this difficulty unexplained,
when introducing here this account of Esau's wives from a
different source from that already embodied by him in his com-
pilation. Indeed, we should rather say that the compiler in-
creased the difficulty, if, as is supposed by some, he introduced
into v. 2 the words, "the daughter of Zibeon," without which
in this verse and in v. 14 the descent of Aholibamah would be
clear.
The Bishop of Natal indeed gives the entire of this passage
to the original Elohist, who he supposes had received different
1 The Anah, indeed, of v. 2 and of 14, 18, might as well have been the name of a
woman, as the Aholibamah of v. 41 the name of a man.
520
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
accounts at different times, and recorded the particulars here
mentioned without correcting those he had previously mentioned
in xxvi. and xxviii. This would be less probable in the case
of the supposed Elohist, than of a single author of the entire
book; for when the Elohist's narrative is extracted from the
entire, and its parts brought together, these varying particulars
come into much closer proximity than at present, and so would
have been less likely to have escaped explanation. But while
the Bishop takes this view, others on the ground of the incon-
sistency give the description of the wives in this chapter to the
second Elohist, and thus introduce the difficulty of a compiler
putting together these inconsistent accounts. They agree,
however, in giving v. 6¹ to the original Elohist, on account
of its resemblance to the description of Abraham's removal in
xii. 5, and of some other similar removals, which for the same
reason are given to him. All these resolve themselves into the
first. The resemblance has no weight unless it is distinctive,
and the only plea for its distinctiveness is the supposed neces-
sity of assuming that xii. 5, as a needless repetition, must have
been by a different hand from the writer of xii. 4. But we have
already seen that this repetition is due to a very different cause.
The compiler, however, is supposed to have introduced, in v. 6,
the words, "to a country," into the clause, "went from the face of
Jacob." He had no motive to introduce this, and had he intro-
duced anything he would have been more explicit, and have told
what country he meant. If we might connect the expression,
"from the face of Jacob," with "country," instead of with the verb
from which it is unusually separated, there would be no difficulty
in regarding the words to have come from the author as
they stand, the meaning being a country somewhat removed
from Jacob. The absence of the article before country is not
decisive of anything. The preposition so often gives the
1 "Then Esau took his wives. and all his substance which he had got in the
land of Canaan; and went to a country from the face of Jacob." The sequel to the
end of v. 8 of course goes with this.
•
CH. XXXVI. 1-8.
521
article to an indefinite word, simply by virtue of the stat. constr.,
that its absence here might have been caused by a proper name
following in the genitive, which has now disappeared from the
text. The LXX. have a totally different reading, ẻk Tŷs yŷs
Xávaav, in which they agree with the Samaritan Pentateuch.
There is no ground for supposing that the succeeding verses, 7–8,
are by a different author from the writer of xxxii. 3, in the state-
ment there that Jacob on his first return from Padan-Aram sent
messengers to Esau to Seir, which the author informs us was
the same country as that known, at any rate in his time,
as the country of Edom, "to the land of Seir, the country
of Edom." From this we learn, indeed, that Esau himself was
then in the land of Seir, which, as he married in that land,
was not an improbable circumstance. It is also said that
after his interview with Jacob, "Esau returned that day on his
way to Seir." The final removal, however, of his family and
all his possessions, is what is stated in the present chapter to
have been consequent on the greatness of Jacob's possessions,
which did not admit of both dwelling in the land of their
sojourning. He might have already acquired possessions, and
even territory in Seir, the Di already mentioned. This
was likely by reason of his marriage with Aholibamah. Now,
we are told that it was the family and possessions he had gotten
in the land of Canaan which he removed from the land of his
sojourning, the land of Canaan being here mentioned, as if to
indicate that he had already possessions elsewhere, and being
called the land of his sojourning, in which Jacob continued to
dwell, xxxvii. 1, in contradistinction to Seir, where he obtained
a permanent settlement. There is no opposition therefore
between this statement and the incidental reference previously
made to Esau, as already in Seir at the time of Jacob's return
from Mesopotamia; rather the manner of expression coincides
with this fact than the contrary.
522
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
XI.—THE GENERATIONS OF ESAU IN SEIR.
CH. XXXVI. 9.-XXXVII. 1. THE EDOMITES. NO NAME OF GOD.
THIS passage, which forms a new section with the usual
introductory formula, contains one of the alleged anachronisms
which have been supposed to betray a later authorship than that
which has been traditionally assigned to the book of Genesis,
and thus calls for examination. In v. 31, which introduces the
enumeration of the kings that reigned in Edom, it is said "these
are the kings that reigned in Edom, before there reigned any
king over the Children of Israel." This remark, supposed to be
made quite gratuitously, has been regarded as unconsciously
betraying the writer's contemporaneousness with the government
of kings established in Samuel's time amongst the Children of
Israel. But first it is to be observed, that the title of king was
given to earlier governors of the Israelites than the kings usually
so named. Moses is called by this title in Deut. xxxiii. 5, where
he says of himself, "He was a king in Jeshurun, when the
heads of the people and the tribes of Israel were gathered
together." This instance of the use of the word king, it may
be said, is poetical, but the cognate verb is used in a very prosaic
narrative in Jud. ix. 2, in reference to the government of Abi-
melech, and of his brethren, who are spoken of as reigning.
At any rate, the construction (before to reign a king) does not
imply that a king had yet reigned; we have the same form in
xxvii. 4 for a yet future event: "before I die." And then it is to
be considered that the design of the remark is not chronological
at all. A series of aristocratic rulers called dukes are first enu-
merated. These were succeeded by an elective monarchy, twelve
kings having been elected in succession, whose government had
again merged in an aristocracy described as dukes. These were in
existence at the time of the writer, and it appears from Exod. xv.
15,¹ that this was the nature of the Edomite government in the
1" Then the dukes of Edom shall be amazed.”
CH. XXXVI. 9.-XXXVII. 1.
523
days of Moses. Now it was not to mark the date of the dynasty
of elective sovereigns, that the reference to the government of the
Children of Israel by kings is mentioned. Rather the design is
to mark the contrast of the early rise of the descendants of Esau
to the rank of an independent kingdom, which had lasted through
a succession of twelve kings, before ever the Children of Israel,
to whom such great promises had been made, had reached the
condition of a people united under an independent government,
which they first were in the days of Moses. This contrast of the
early rise of the sons of Esau with the early depression of the
Israelites is further marked at the close of the passage. During
Jacob's lifetime Esau migrated to mount Seir, and there obtained
the land of his possession, where the succession of rulers enumer-
ated continued to govern; "but Jacob dwelt in the land wherein
his father was a stranger, in the land of Canaan." The contrast.
is lost by the incorrect division of the chapters, this concluding
verse being severed from its proper connexion, and joined to the
succeeding introductory formula, which uniformly throughout the
book marks the commencement of a new section. If it be joined
to its proper context, the contrast becomes apparent, the connect-
ing assuming, as it often does, an adversative character, as in
the dè of the LXX. And then this contrast throws light on the
import of v. 31, which is not simply to mark the date of the
commencement of the royal dynasty in Edom, as is supposed by
those who think that it was the appointment of a king over
Israel in the time of Samuel that was intended in that verse,
but marks the contrast between the early progress of the
Edomites as a nation, and the depressed state of the Israelites
for so long a period.¹
As regards the distribution of this section generally amongst
the several supposed writers, the names of Esau's wives and
1 The following remark is quoted by Hengstenberg from Witsius, Misc. i., p. 125:-
"Jacobo facta erat de regibus promissio, Esavo non. Merito ergo observat Moses
tanquam rem memorabilem, et in quâ ingens esset fidei exercitium, quod antequi
hæc promissio impleretur in posteritate Jacobi, Esavitæ tot jam reges habuerit.
Non est necesse propheticum hic quicquam fingere. Omnia historica sunt."
524
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
their immediate sons in v. 2-5 having been given to the junior
Elohist, now 11-14 are also given to him as carrying on the
succession of their descendants, while 9 and 10, as repeating
the sons of two of his wives, are given to the Jehovist. For
this reason v. 14 ought also to be given to him. But the repe-
tition is not to be accounted for in this way; it is the customary
resumed mention of what had previously been mentioned, at
the commencement of a new section, so far as is needed to make
the new section more complete in itself. Then in v. 18, where
the sons of Aholibamah are again mentioned, the words, "duke
Korah," are given to the Redactor, no doubt because “duke
Korah" was previously named amongst the sons of Eliphaz.
But the interpolation is plainly not in v. 18, but in v. 16, where
duke Korah seems out of place. Of v. 19 the junior Elohist
has "who is Edom," and the Jehovist the remainder. Then
the junior Elohist has 20-28, describing the sons of Seir; but
the recapitulation of them in 29, 30 goes to the Redactor,
though it is hard to say what should have suggested to him to
repeat them, when they had already been mentioned in the
previous verses. However an original author might have re-
capitulated what he had previously mentioned, an editor would
never have imagined that such a repetition was needed. The
Jehovist is allowed to finish the chapter, while the first verse of
the next chapter, which has been shown to be closely connected
with v. 31, is severed from it and given to the first Elohist.
The Bishop of Natal gives from 20-30, describing the sons of
Seir the Horite, to the Jehovist, as also the clause in 35, "who
smote Midian in the field of Moab," because the word "smote"
is like the Jehovist, and "the field of Moab" is like "the field
of Edom" in xxxii. 3. Every one, according to the Bishop, is
limited to his own little vocabulary.
But now, in opposition to all this subdivision, there is ob-
servable a method in the arrangement of the entire that is quite
incompatible with the piecing and patching thus imagined.
First, there is the regular introductory formula in v. 9, setting
525
CH. XXXVI. 9.-XXXVII. 1.
forth the generations of Esau in Seir. Then there is the usual
recapitulation of what is needed from the preceding section,
namely the sons of Esau by his several wives, preparatory to
the naming of their sons again. But here it is to be observed
that only the sons of Adah and Basemath are first mentioned, and
then their grandsons are enumerated, while the sons of Aholi-
bamah are named after these, and have no sons assigned them.
These are all again enumerated; but not now simply as sons,
but also as dukes, the sons of Esau by Aholibamah appearing in
this capacity, while only the grandsons by the other wives are
dukes. This falls in with what was already said of the sub-
stitution of Aholibamah, as a new and much later wife, for
the first of the wives previously mentioned, Judith the daughter
of Beeri, who is omitted from these sections as not having had
any offspring. Thus Basemath and Adah have grandsons by
the time Aholibamah has sons. And by the time these grandsons
have obtained the position of dukes in Seir, the sons of Aho-
libamah are in the same rank and authority. This will explain
the collocation of Aholibamah and her sons in . 14, and the
absence of any mention of her grandsons either in 14 or 18.
The enumeration of duke Korah amongst the dukes that came
of Eliphaz is plainly a mistake; he does not appear amongst
the previously enumerated sons, who are only six, while Korah
makes a seventh duke. This must be attributed to an accident
in transcription. The concluding words of r. 19, "This is
Edom," attributed to a different author from the other parts of
the verse, is the proper conclusion of the enumeration of the
sons of Esau as contrasted with that of the sons of Seir next
set out. These are brought in by reason of the connexion
between Esau and the daughter of Anah. The form of govern-
ment which had existed under them was that aristocratical
form which the descendants of Esau afterwards assumed for a
certain period. After mentioning these Horite dukes, their
names are recapitulated, as if for greater exactness, before the
writer proceeds to a new kind of government that succeeded
526
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
the aristocratical government of dukes, namely a succession of
elective kings. After these kings have been successively enu-
merated, there follows a return to the aristocratical government
of dukes, which, as already noticed, prevailed at the time of the
Exodus, these being the dukes, "according to their habitations
in the land of their possessions," and "according to their
families, after their places," and therefore probably one set of
contemporaneous rulers. In all this there is an orderly and
methodical arrangement highly consistent with itself and other
passages, and nothing to warrant the minute subdivision that
has been grounded on an entire oversight of the design in the
whole passage. This design and methodical plan will become
more apparent by an arrangement of the several parts of this
account as regards the sons of Esau, which is borrowed from
the "Historical Geography of Arabia," by the Rev. Ch.
Forster, B.D., Vol. II., p. 3 :-
K
"And these are the generations of Esau, the father of the
Edomites, in Mount Seir:
These are the names of Esau's sons:
Eliphaz, the son of Adah, the wife of Esau:
Reuel, the son of Basemath, the wife of Esau.
And the sons of Eliphaz were
Teman, Omar, Zepho, and Gatam, and Kenaz.
And Timna was concubine to Eliphaz, Esau's son; and
she bare to Eliphaz,
Amalek:
these were the sons of Adah, Esau's wife.
And these are the sons of Reuel:
Nahath, and Zerah, Shammah, and Mizzah :
these were the sons of Basemath Esau's wife.
And these were the sons of Aholibamah, the daughter of
Anah, the daughter of Zibeon, Esau's wife; and she bare to
Esau,
Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah.
These were the dukes of the sons of Esau :
CH. XXXVI. 9.—XXXVII. 1.
527
the sons of Eliphaz, the firstborn of Esau:
Duke Teman, duke Omar, duke Zepho, duke Kenaz, [duke
Korah,] duke Gatam, and duke Amalek.
These are the dukes, that came of Eliphaz in the land of Edom :
these were the sons of Adah.
And these are the sons of Reuel, Esau's son:
Duke Nahath, duke Zerah, duke Shammah, duke Mizzah.
These are the dukes that came of Reuel, in the land of Edom:
these are the sons of Basemath, Esau's wife.
And these are the sons of Aholibamah, Esau's wife:
Duke Jeush, duke Jaalam, duke Korah:
these were the dukes that came of Aholibamah, the daughter
of Anah, Esau's wife.
These are the sons of Esau, who is Edom: and these are their
dukes."
The writer knew the family history of the last of the Edomite
kings, and therefore, the Bishop of Natal says, must have been
contemporary with him or nearly so. For this last king, whose
death is not mentioned as in the case of the others, (but is in
Chronicles as by a later author), is said to have lived in a city
called Pai, and to have married Mehetabel, the daughter of
Matred, the daughter of Mezahab. Moreover this last king,
called Hadar in Genesis, appears as Hadad in Chronicles; and
then we read in 1 Kings xi. 14-22 of Hadad the Edomite, of
the king's seed, who had escaped as a little child from the
slaughter of the Edomites in David's time, and afterwards
returned from Egypt, to which he had been carried, to become
an adversary to Solomon. And it is said by the Bishop that
this Hadad may have been the son or the grandson of the last
of the Edomite kings of the same name, and thus the supposi-
tion of the composition of the Elohist's writing about the time
of the commencement of the kingdom of Israel in Samuel's days
is confirmed. Now of course all this about Hadad is built on
the correctness of the reading in Chronicles of Hadad for
Hadar, a very possible and likely various reading, but as likely
528
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
to be wrong in Chronicles, as Hadar is to be a mistake in
Genesis. Then it is to be observed that in Gen. xxxvi., one
generation of contemporary dukes, sons of Esau, is followed by
a succession of seven elective kings, who are succeeded by one
succession of contemporary dukes again. Now while these
might very well have filled the time from Esau to the Exodus,
they never could have filled it to the kingdom under Saul. And
yet the Elohist must have imagined that they did, if he brought
down the kings of Edom to this late period. On the other
hand, as we learn from Exod. xv. that there were dukes in
Edom again at the time then spoken of, the last of the preceding
kings might have been contemporary with Moses, and his family
history known to him. This argument is therefore equally good
for a writer at the time of the Exodus as of Samuel, while the
fewness of the successive kings and dukes is more favourable to
the former than to the latter. Even if the Hadad of Chronicles
was the true reading, and not the Hadar of Genesis, the Hadad
of 1 Kings xi. may as well have derived the name from the
earlier kings, as from a recent one, or the name may have been
of frequent occurrence from time to time. But nothing is too
weak to afford an argument to the Bishop.
§ 1.
XII. THE GENERATIONS OF JACOB.
CH. XXXVII. 2-36. JOSEPH'S SALE INTO EGYPT.
JEHOVISTIC NOR ELOHISTIC.
NEITHER
A NEW section of the book begins here with the customary
formula, "These are the generations of Jacob." The history of
Jacob had been carried down to the death of Isaac, and was
then interrupted by the two sections which contained the parti-
culars of the history of Esau and his descendants, that have
just been discussed. The present section, having for its subject
matters mainly connected with the history of Joseph, goes back
few to the time when he was seventeen years of age,
a years
and from thence traces the events which are to be described.
•
CH. XXXVII. 2-36.
529
This recession of the date of the narrative to an earlier period
than that already arrived at, is, as before observed, in accordance
with the custom of the author at the commencement of the sections
in general into which the book is divided. Its existence here
was shown in p. 323, Note. This section taking its date from this
earlier period is a continuous history to the end of the book, with
the exception that the narrative is interrupted by ch. xxxviii.
which contains the particulars of Judah's family commencing
with his marriage about the time of Joseph's sale into Egypt.
The first portion of the history, which is severed from the rest
by the interposition of this narrative of Judah's family rela-
tions in ch. xxxviii., is a passage which does not mention God,
and is, therefore, as far as the Divine designations are con-
cerned, indifferent. It is, notwithstanding, shared between
Davidson's junior Elohist, Jehovist, and Redactor. The only
attempt, however, which he makes to assign any ground for
the subdivision is founded on the mention of the Midianites in
r. 28, 36. He says, p. 65, "In Gen. xxxvii. we read that,
according to Judah's proposition, Joseph was sold to the Ish-
maelites (25-28). But it is also stated that a company of
Midianites passing by took him out of the pit (r. 28), and sold
him into Egypt to Potiphar (v. 36). The Jehovist insertion in
the twenty-eighth verse, 'and sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites
for twenty pieces of silver,' confuses both accounts. That two
traditions are given, appears from the fact that the selling of
Joseph into Egypt is related twice, and assigned once to the
Midianites and once to the Ishmaelites." But what if these
Midianites were Ishmaelites? In Jud. viii. 24 we are told
that the Midianites whom Gideon conquered "had golden ear-
rings, because they were Ishmaelites." If the name Ishmaelite,
at the date of the book of Judges, was used to include other
Bedouin tribes besides the natural descendants of Ishmael,
there is no reason why that name should not have been so used
when the book of Genesis was written; and the Midianites of
Gen. xxxvii. may have been of the same tribes as those of
-
34
530
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
Judges viii.¹ When the sons of Jacob saw the company at a
distance they were generically Ishmaelites. As the caravan
passed along, a party of merchants belonging to it came up, who
were Midianite Ishmaelites, and being traffickers, purchased
Joseph, carried him down into Egypt, and sold him there.
Besides making no reference to the fact that there were Midianite
Ishmaelites, as shown by Jud. viii. 24, Davidson quietly assumes,
as if it were quite clear, that it was the Midianites that drew
Joseph out of the pit and sold him to the Ishmaelites. There
or a relative, as nomina-
tive case to the verb drew, to render this necessary. As the
text stands the verb drew may have Joseph's brethren from v.
27 for its subject, just as consistently with the grammatical
construction; and then the clause, "and sold Joseph to the
Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver," having Joseph's
brethren also for its subject, does not confuse the account at all.
The repetition of the sale in xxxix. 1 is no indication of the
union of two distinct traditions, the Midianites of the last verse.
of xxxvii. being the Ishmaelites of xxxix. 1, and the repetition
being occasioned by the interruption of the narrative in order
to mention the circumstances of Judah's family relations. The
important event of Joseph's sale into Egypt was the concluding
particular of the first part of the narrative. The story having
then been interrupted by the mention of matters wholly un-
connected with it, the writer naturally resumes his narrative in
a new subsection by repeating that important event with which
he had left off. There is therefore no necessity, as far as this
mention of the Ishmaelites and the Midianites is concerned, to
resolve the present chapter into two narratives. That, however,
is in fact the only ground on which the resolution is founded
with any shadow of reason.
In effecting it, the second verse is given to the Jehovist, and
אֵלֶה should have been the pronoun
1 These Midianites might have been both Midianites and Ishmaelites, by means of
an intermarriage; just as the Idumacans were reckoned Nabataeans by reason of the
connexion of Esau with Nebaioth, through his wife Basemath: Naßaтaîoι elow oi
'Iduμaîoi, Strabo, Syria, xvi. p. 760, c. Ed. Casaub. See Forster's Arabia, ubi supra.
CH. XXXVII. 2-36.
531
21.
in immediate sequence with the mention of the bad account
Joseph brought his father of the conduct of the sons of Bilhah
and Zilpah, the same writer is made to add from . 3, that Jacob
made for Joseph a coat of many colours. From this mention of
the parti-coloured coat, the Jehovist is made to pass to the first
clause of v. 11, "and his brethren envied him." Now, however
natural this mention of the coat is as an indication of Jacob's
partiality for Joseph, it is very silly as a cause of the envy of
his brethren, who were so much older than he was. Still less
is it a rational cause for their conspiring to slay him, which is
the next statement that is given to the Jehovist, being the latter
clause of r. 18. He next, in the second half of e. 23, tells that
they stripped off the coat,¹ and (r. 28) sold Joseph to the Ish-
maelites for twenty pieces of silver, the remainder of these
verses being given to the junior Elohist. He then tells, . 32,
v.
that they sent the coat of colours, the junior Elohist interposing
with the mention of their father as the person to whom they
sent it, while the Jehovist makes Jacob ask if it is his son's coat,
and tells that he knew it, r. 33, and so makes him conclude that
his son has been devoured by an evil beast. All the succeeding
account of Jacob's grief, to the last clause of 35, is also given to
the Jehovist, this being entirely out of proportion to the brevity
with which the more important particulars are specified. The
remaining parts of the chapter are then treated as an account of
the same events by the junior Elohist, who makes the dreams
the chief cause of offence, represents the brothers' part to be
only the casting into the pit, while the Midianites take Joseph
out and sell him into Egypt, as mentioned in the last verse.
1 The repetition of Joseph in this verse, instead of a pronoun in the second clause,
may seem to favour the supposition that the two parts of this verse were put together,
having previously existed separately. But nothing is more common than such repeti-
tions of a proper name, instead of the substitution of a pronoun in the second clause.
Thus, opening at random we find, Jud. iv. 24, "the hand of the children of Israel
prevailed against Jabin king of Canaan, until they had destroyed Jabin king of
Canaan;" 1 Sam. i. 5, "Unto Hannah he gave a worthy portion, for Hannah he
loved;" iii. 14, "I have sworn to the house of Eli, that the iniquity of the house of
Eli shall not be purged;" 2 Sam. xvii. 21, "They told king David, and said unto
David." Such instances might be multiplied indefinitely.
532
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
The Redactor's aid however is sought in certain difficulties. As
it was the original Elohist who was supposed to have mentioned
in xxxv. 27 that Jacob had gone to Hebron to Isaac, the men-
tion of Jacob's sending Joseph to his brethren from the vale of
Hebron, v. 14, in a passage by the junior Elohist, is highly
inconvenient. Its natural effect would be, as an undesigned
coincidence, to connect this passage with that in ch. xxxv. just
referred to, and so to form a proof of the unity of authorship.
To evade the force of this the Redactor is called in, and he sup-
plements the narrative with this mention of Hebron. If every-
thing which thus gives an air of genuineness to a writing may
in this way be put aside, as the work of an editor patching
together incoherent materials, it is of course possible to destroy
the credit of any ancient work. But true criticism has not
recognised this arbitrary mode of treatment. The Redactor is
again brought in at v. 18, which in the original runs thus: “And
they saw him afar off; and he had not yet come near them, and
they conspired against him to slay him." The last of these
clauses is wanted, in order to be connected with the clause of
v. 11, "his brethren envied him," to eke out the Jehovist's
narrative. The intermediate clause which, as the text now
stands, comes in very well, to intimate that when they saw him
coming, they did not wait for his arrival, but conspired before
he came near, would not fit in with the separated Jehovist
narrative, which has no mention of Joseph's approach; and
attached to the first clause without the last, it has an air of
unmeaning and silly repetition. Its existence would therefore
naturally serve as a bond to unite the two other clauses as proceed-
ing from the same writer. But to a third person putting the
narratives of two others together, it would never occur to intro-
duce this clause, which is not necessary, as the first and third
clauses would read very well together without it. Though an
original writer might have naturally introduced it, a compiler
under the supposed circumstances never would. The Redactor's
addition to v. 22, "that he might rid him out of their hands, to
CH. XXXVII. 2-36.
533
deliver him to his father again," is also a piece of uncalled-for
meddling on his part, as the design of Reuben is sufficiently
clear without it, being implied by his return to the pit to take
him out. However an original writer might naturally mention
this purpose, a compiler not finding it expressed in his materials,
but having it sufficiently implied in them, would scarcely think of
introducing an express mention of it. The last interference of
the Redactor is in the interpolation in v. 36 of the name of Poti-
phar, who on the hypothesis of a double narrative, is a different
person from the "officer of Pharaoh and captain of the guard,"
these latter words being in like manner considered to be an
interpolation of the Redactor in the first verse of ch. xxxix.,
which is attributed to the Jehovist, as this last verse of xxxvii. is
to the junior Elohist. The identity or difference of these persons
will be considered better when we come to ch. xxxix. The Bishop
of Natal makes a much more simple subdivision of the chapter,
only giving to the original Elohist the first clause of v. 2, the
first clause of v. 21, and v. 36:-"These are the generations of
Jacob, Joseph being seventeen years old, was feeding the flock
with his brethren. And there passed by Midianites merchant-
men; and the Midianites sold him into Egypt." Something he
supposes to have been expunged before r. 36, explaining how
the Midianites became possessed of Joseph. With these con-
jectures it is of course easy to complete an imaginary Elohistic
story thus picked out of the general history, and to leave a
sufficiently complete account to the Jehovist also, to whom the
Bishop gives the rest of this chapter.
There is an alleged difficulty, on the supposition of the unity
of the narrative, created by the words of Judah in v. 26,¹ which
seem to imply that they still intended to lay violent hands on
Joseph, which may be thought inconsistent with their previous
acquiescence in Reuben's counsel not to shed blood, but to cast
him into the pit. Accordingly, the Jehovist's narrative is
supposed to have no mention of the pit, but to represent the
1 "What profit is it, if we slay our brother ?"
534
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
brethren as purposing to slay him until they saw the Ishmael-
ites coming. The supposed difficulty, however, does not re-
quire this division of the narrative. The narrative as it stands
in its integrity implies that the brethen in casting Joseph into
the pit expected that he would meet his death in this way.
Reuben alone had any different intention; and his proposition
to them was made ostensibly as offering a means of getting rid
of him, not consistently with the saving of his life, but merely
without slaying him with their own hands. And Reuben himself
imagined that he had come by his death, when he found him not
in the pit, and accordingly subsequently reproached his brethren
with his death, as related in xlii. 21, 22. He had been originally
ignorant of the sale, and was left in ignorance of it afterwards,
his brethren preferring that he should suppose his death had
happened accidentally, to confessing their guilt in selling him.
And so while Reuben says his blood was required of them, the
others only reproach themselves with being "guilty concerning
their brother, in that they saw the anguish of his soul, when he
besought them, and they would not hear." Ranke, Unter-
suchungen, I. p. 258, remarks that "Reuben's intercession had
only so far prevailed, as that they should not put him to death
at once, but leave him to die in the pit, as though their guilt
might be less heinous." He replies to De Wette's objection
that the admission of the unity of the narrative renders it
necessary to suppose that Reuben was absent when the propo-
sition to take Joseph out of the pit and sell him was made and
adopted, that it belongs to æsthetics, and not to criticism, to
determine whether a narrative may pass over in silence a cir-
cumstance which the connexion obliges us to suppose. And
when De Wette asks, “Where should he have been; did he go
away just at the moment when his presence was of such neces-
sity for hindering the original design of slaying the lad ?"
Ranke replies that one might in the same way object to the
story of the death of Atys, as related by Herodotus, and ask
how could Adrastus have been so incautious as to slay his bene-
CH. XXXVIII.
535
factor's son ?¹
?1 De Wette thinks that at any rate it should
have been mentioned that Reuben had gone away, whereas it
appears that all the brethren sat down together to eat. And
Ranke replies, that in like manner we only learn that Atys had
separated himself from the company of his attendants by the
consequence, while yet no one has thought of making it an
objection, that the historian had not previously told this. He
also bids us read the narrative in which Josephus supplies the
several omitted particulars, and asks whether the story gains in
probability in this way? The omission of particulars sufficiently
implied in a narrative is really an indication of originality and
authenticity. On the contrary, the readers of apocryphal nar-
ratives are familiar with the prolixity and minuteness with
which the slightest particulars are set forth.
2. CH. XXXVIII. THE FAMILY OF JUDAH. JEHOVISTIC.
THIS section, Jehovistic in its character as regards the Hebrew
text, having Jehovah three times and Elohim not once, while
the LXX. have kúptos once, and feòs twice, is wholly attributed
to the so-called Jehovist. The nature of the particulars related
in it, so discreditable to the regal tribe of Judah, affords a
guarantee of the authenticity of the passage. It is very unlikely
to have been introduced under the circumstances and at the time
the supposed Jehovist wrote, when Judah was the royal tribe,
and David's house was on the throne of Israel. The story must
either have been a pure invention of this writer, or he must
have taken it up as a traditional tale, and incorporated it in the
narrative he was composing or enlarging. In neither way
would such a writer have been likely to have given perpetuity
to a story like this,—a story which the earlier authority had
omitted, if such a tradition was ever in existence.
The interruption which this passage causes to the continuity
of the history of Joseph, and the difficulty arising from the men-
tion of Judah's grandchildren amongst the descendants of Jacob
¹ Clio, xliii.
536
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
who went down into Egypt, have caused some to suppose that
this chapter has been displaced, and should be referred back to
an earlier part of the history. Though the passage interrupts
the history of Joseph, yet it is not out of place in a section
which is entitled "The generations of Jacob;" while Judah's
age, about three years more than that of Joseph, would have
rendered his marriage soon after the sale of Joseph not im-
probable, but certainly very unlikely at a much earlier period,
-at any rate, so much sooner as to remove the difficulty
regarding Hezron and Hamul. Judah's marriage could only
have taken place during the time that elapsed since Jacob's return
from Laban. This interval was but eleven years, as Joseph
was seventeen at the time of the sale into Egypt, and was six
when Jacob parted from Laban. At that time Judah could only
have been nine years of age, as he was the fourth of Leah's
sons, and at the earliest could not have been born before the
eleventh year of Jacob's stay with Laban, and it was probably
later. Judah's age therefore at the time of Joseph's sale did
not exceed twenty, and his marriage could not be pushed back
sufficiently to make any material difference as regards the
possibility of Hezron and Hamul having been born before the
descent into Egypt. Another supposition has, however, been
made, which might have rendered this possible. Archbishop
Ussher thinks that Leah's marriage was not deferred till the
expiration of the first seven years of Jacob's service, but took
place at once, the service for her being rendered afterwards as
in Rachel's case. This, however, cannot be supposed without
doing great violence to the narrative, such as is not admissible
in order to get over a difficulty, when the authenticity of the
narrative is in question. At any rate, as regards the place
of this chapter, the repetition of Joseph's sale in xxxix. 1,
however in accordance with the frequent custom at the com-
mencement of a new subsection, is so particular as to imply a
greater interruption of the narrative than usual.¹
1 Ranke, Untersuchungen, I. p. 261, remarks that this chapter, relating chiefly to
CH. XXXIX.
537
§ 3. CH. XXXIX. JOSEPH IN POTIPHAR'S HOUSE, AND CAST INTO
PRISON. JEHOVISTIC.
THIS section has the usual recapitulation at its commence-
ment, rendered more needful, and more than usually particular,
by the interruption occasioned by the story of Judah's marriage
and relations with his family. This cause of the recapitulation
disposes of the plea it has been supposed to afford for a double
narrative combined, as if the officer of the guard and Potiphar
were different persons, though identified by the compiler of the
history in its present form. Before we discuss this question,
however, it will be convenient briefly to survey the use of the
divine names to the end of the book.
Throughout the thirty-ninth chapter the historian in his own
person constantly and frequently uses the name Jehovah in
sequence with ch. xxxviii. It was Jehovah was with Joseph
in his captivity and caused him to prosper, and Joseph's master
saw that Jehovah was with him, and made all that he did to
prosper in his hand. In this latter statement, however, it is
not to be supposed that the writer intended to intimate that
this Egyptian knew anything of Jehovah under that or any
other name, but simply that he perceived that the Divine bless-
ing attended Joseph, and this he would naturally attribute to
the God whom Joseph worshipped. So far, however, was the
writer from intending to imply any special knowledge of this
God of Joseph amongst the Egyptians, that when in the course
of this otherwise purely Jehovistic chapter Joseph asks Poti-
phar's wife, how he could venture to do the great wickedness
which she proposed to him, and sin against God? he is careful to
make Joseph use to her the term Elohim, not the name Jehovah.
It is true the word Elohim would have been more proper in
events subsequent to Joseph's seventeenth year, could not have been introduced so
conveniently at any other place. At the sale of Joseph there is a pause, whereas the
rest of the history is so continuous, and the events so closely connected, as to make
any interruption of the narrative extremely awkward.
538
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
A
any case, as it might be regarded as used in an implied anti-
thesis to man; he would have sinned not merely against man,
namely against her husband, but against God. But apart from
this antithesis, which may be observed in several subsequent
instances of the use of Elohim, it will be found that throughout
this entire narrative the writer has been careful to avoid the
use of the name Jehovah in cases which would have implied
any knowledge of the true God on the part of the Egyptians.
Thus Joseph says to the dreamers in prison, ch. xl., that inter-
pretations belong to Elohim, where the contrast with men may
indeed also be understood,-to Elohim, not to men; and in xli.
it is Elohim that shows Pharaoh what he is about to do, and
Elohim that will shortly bring it to pass. It has been noticed
by Hengstenberg, that in speaking to Pharaoh in this chapter
(xli.) Joseph uses Elohim with the article, while Pharaoh uses
it without one, and he thinks that Joseph thus intends to imply
his belief in the one living and true God as opposed to the
several gods of the Egyptians. This usage, however, is not
invariable as regards Joseph, who in v. 16 uses Elohim without
the article, while Pharaoh connects the word with a singular
verb in v. 39, which seems opposed to any design of contrasting
the monotheism of Joseph with the polytheism of Pharaoh.
The most that might be implied in Joseph's use of the definite
Ha-Elohim with a singular verb would be the more distinct
and definite notions in regard to the deity, that he might be
supposed to have had. But in fact the article all through is
only the article of reference, and that emphatic reference. In
the first instance, therefore, in v. 16, there is no article:
"Elohim shall give Pharaoh an answer of peace." To this
Joseph reverts in the subsequent verses,-the Elohim of whom
I spake showeth what he is about to do, v. 25, 28; the Elohim I
spake of, with whom this is established, will shortly bring it to
pass, v. 32.1
1 See in reference to these instances the general discussion already given of the use
of Elohim with and without the article.
CH. XXXIX.
539
When Joseph, v. 51, 52, attributes the birth of his sons to
the Divine blessing, the use of Elohim would have been natural
in preference to any personal name of Joseph's family God, as
doubtless these sayings would have been addressed to the Egyp-
tians of his household. So also in the subsequent parts of the
narrative, as long as Joseph is unknown to his brethren and
they regard him as an Egyptian, in which character he also
addresses them, it is quite natural that Elohim, not the personal
and proper name of the God of the chosen family, should be
used; and thus the use of Elohim through a large part of this
narrative in preference to Jehovah, or any name for which it
might have been the substitute, is accounted for. Such a name,
however, El-Shaddai, that which according to Exod. vi. 3 was
the proper name at any rate most significant to the Patriarchs
in these earlier times, Jacob employs when he sends Benjamin
with his other sons, and prays that God Almighty would grant
them favour in the eyes of Joseph. And perhaps it was with
reference to the use of this name by Isaac in pronouncing on
Jacob himself the El-Shaddai blessing adopted from ch. xvii.
when he sent him to Laban, that Jacob now commends his sons
to El-Shaddai also. But when one of Jacob's sons says to his
brethren, on finding the money in his sack, "What is this that
God hath done unto us ?" xlii. 28, the use of Elohim in prefer-
ence to any proper name of God is to be accounted for by the
fear which a guilty conscience had awakened, suggesting to
them the contrast between God and man; it is not any man,
but God that has done this, to bring about their punishment.
And so again in Judah's words, xliv. 28, "God hath found out
the iniquity of thy servants," where the use of the article is to
be regarded as generalising in the greatest possible degree the
idea of God, instead of denoting the personal God in any
special sense as so many suppose: "the Divine Providence hath
found out the iniquity of thy servants." Thus the use of
Elohim is strictly justified in every case of its occurrence, until
we reach the point where Joseph is made known to his brethren.
540
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
In Joseph's words to his brethren on that occasion the use of
Elohim is also justified by the contrast between Divine and
human agency. They were angry with themselves because
they had sold him; he says it was God that did it;—not they,
but God, that had sent him before them for their preservation.
This contrast is also implied in the message he sends to his
father. His brethren must now confess their guilt to their
father; the pain of such a confession will be mitigated by their
telling him at the same time that, though they had sold Joseph
as a slave, God had made him lord of all Egypt. This contrast
between Divine Providence and human design makes Elohim
there also the proper term.
Thus we are brought to ch. xlvi., where the writer for once
during the entire passage resumes in his own person the mention
of God. That in doing so the Elohistic habit, which he had in
a manner acquired in the proper and almost necessary use of
Elohim in the mouths of his interlocutors through so consider-
able a portion of the narrative, should have suggested its use
now, where the occasion did not specially call for it, is what
might have been naturally expected. Its use would have been
rendered still more likely by the employment of the name
Israel (now used in common with that of Jacob, ever since it was
finally conferred on that Patriarch), as the name adopted in the
commencement of ch. xlvi. That the first Elohim in this
chapter is not thus to be accounted for, may be observed from
the paraphrastic expression, "the God of his father Isaac," where
Elohim is in its proper character as a general term, rendered
specific by the addition which distinguishes this Elohim from
any other. Hence, as on other occasions, this paraphrastic clause
might follow even if Jehovah had also been used, while on the
other hand, in the expression as it stands, Jehovah could not be
substituted for Elohim; neither could it in the like expression
attributed to God himself in the third verse. It is the
Elohim in v. 2, and the Ha-El in v. 3, the El who was the
Elohim of his father, that are attributable to the sort of
CH. XXXIX.
541
Elohistic habit which might have exercised its influence after
the composition of the preceding narrative, in which the term
was so often employed by a kind of necessity, together with
the influence occasioned by the adoption of the name Israel.
Then as regards v. 3, the El there mentioned with the article
prefixed specifies the El, who as El-Shaddai was by that name
known to the Patriarchs, as stated in Exod. vi. 3, the name
Jehovah being at times substituted for it by the author, where
it is put, as frequently happens, even into the mouth of speakers
introduced into the narrative, if this name was not itself also
actually in use. There is no further mention of God in this
chapter, nor is there any mention of God in that which follows.
In ch. xlviii., however, which contains the conversation between
Jacob and Joseph on the occasion of Joseph's visit to his father
when he heard of his sickness, and Jacob's blessing pronounced
on Joseph's sons, the use of Elohim is still found to prevail.
It seems to follow in course, however, from the name which
Jacob employs at the first, the name for which, as so often
noticed, Jehovah was more exclusively substituted in the time
of Moses: "El-Shaddai appeared to me at Luz in the land of
Canaan, and blessed me, and said unto me, Behold I will make
thee fruitful, and multiply thee, and I will make of thee a
multitude of people." Here there is a manifest reference to
xxxv. 11, where God is represented as calling himself El-
Shaddai, that being itself repeated from ch. xvii. In connexion
with the promise of a fruitful progeny thus recalled to mind,
he now adopts as his own the two sons of Joseph born in the
land of Egypt, while Joseph says these were his sons whom
Elohim had given him in that place, as if in fulfilment of the
promise of El Shaddai just mentioned. In addition to this
connexion, the contrast between human expectation and Divine
disposing will account for Elohim in v. 11, where Israel says,
'I had not thought to see thy face, and lo, God hath showed
me even thy seed." A similar contrast between the human
and Divine is marked in the last instance in this chapter
100
542
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
D
where Elohim occurs,
Behold, I die, but God shall be with
you." In the blessing described in v. 15, 16, Elohim, as well
as the angel mentioned in apposition with it, is in both in-
stances of its use rendered definite by the article, and with the
relative clauses subjoined, "the Elohim before whom my
fathers did walk, the Elohim which fed me all my life long,
the angel which redeemed me from all evil," specifies a parti-
cular Elohim, to denote which the general term thus rendered
specific is highly appropriate, and stands as an equivalent for
the proper name El-Shaddai, used at the commencement. And
while in this name there is a reference to xxxv. 11, and through
that back to xvii. 1, where El-Shaddai is identified with Jehovah,
so in the angel that redeemed him there is a manifest reference
to the first scene at Bethel, where the angels of Elohim ascended
and descended on the ladder, at the summit of which was Je-
hovah, referred to afterwards, xxxi. 11, 13, as the angel of God,
the God of Bethel. There is one other instance of Elohim in
the chapter, "In thee shall Israel bless, saying, Elohim make
thee as Ephraim and as Manasseh." Besides the natural sug-
gestion of Elohim in this place arising from its previous use
throughout this passage, the occasion is one in which the simple
power of God in the ordinary superintendence of the course of
natural events is invoked, and its use in such a case would,
under any circumstances, be as probable as that of Jehovah.
In ch. xlix. the name Jehovah, which had been for so long
dropped, not for the most part, if in any case, without sufficient
cause, now re-appears for once in Jacob's ejaculation, when in
the midst of the predictions of the future condition of his
descendants he pauses for a moment and cries, "I have waited
for thy salvation, Jehovah." Nothing can be more natural, or
more beautiful, than the representation of the aged and dying
Patriarch, wearied as it were in the contemplation of circum-
stances not in all respects pleasing to his mind, stopping to
refresh himself with this pious exclamation. If therefore it
wants connexion with the context, it certainly cannot be pro-
(6
CH. XXXIX.
543
1
nounced out of place. The LXX. indeed escape the difficulty
of want of connexion by a rendering which is construed with
the concluding words of the previous verse, καὶ πεσεῖται ὁ
ἱππεὺς εἰς τὰ ὀπίσω, τὴν σωτηρίαν περιμένων κυρίου. It is im-
possible to say whether this is a purely conjectural rendering of
a text corrupted hopelessly, or the translation of an intelligible
various reading. But if Kuplov represented Jehovah in that
reading, it would have been a singularly inappropriate use of the
name, where the idea intended to be conveyed is that of a rider
thrown from his horse and unable to find any assistance but
that which God might give, the Divine help in such a case
being mentally contrasted with the absence of all human aid,
and the general name of God being, as so often exemplified,
the proper term in such a contrast. Shortly after, in blessing
Joseph, the ancient proper name El-Shaddai recurs with this
peculiarity, that the El and Shaddai are separated: "From the
El of thy father, and he shall help thee, and from Shaddai, and
he shall bless thee." Thus the early name and its later repre-
sentative are both presented to us in this discourse. Finally,
towards the close of the last chapter, Joseph's brethren send
him a message begging that he would "forgive the trespass of
the servants of the Elohim of his fathers." This, as already
observed, is the paraphrastic substitute of a proper name; Je-
hovah might have been prefixed, but not substituted in this
phrase for Elohim. Joseph in reply asks, is he in the place of
Elohim? and says that they thought evil against him, but
Elohim meant it unto good. In both these cases the contrast
between Divine and human requires, according to custom, as
well as the proper use of the term, Elohim and not a proper
name; Joseph is a man and not a God, and their intentions, as
the designs of men, were very different from the orderings of
1 Dean Stanley, History of the Jewish Church, Lect. xii., p. 269, says,
For thy
salvation, O Lord, have I waited,' seems to have been his (Dan's) war-cry, as if of a
warrior in the constant attitude of expectation." It is plain that the LXX. had no
traditional knowledge of such a war-cry having been employed by this tribe on any
occasion.
544
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
Providence, as disposed by God. There only now remains the
instance of Joseph's words before his death, in which the sentence,
"Elohim will surely visit you," is twice repeated. And here too
the contrast between the Divine and human lies deep in the
speaker's mind. His family seems now to be permanently
settled in the land of Egypt, and doubtless Joseph foresees for
them a future state of oppression, in which they might seem to
be forgotten by God. Still he has faith in the Divine promises,
they shall be brought back to the promised land. But that
cannot take place by their own power. God will surely visit
them. The LXX. agree with the Hebrew as regards these
names of God.
It remains now to observe how this long passage is apportioned
amongst the several authors who are supposed to have con-
tributed to the composition of it. And in doing this it will be
convenient to return to the separate discussion of the several
sections.
The entire of ch. xxxix. has been given to the Jehovist by
the Bishop of Natal; and by others, with the exception of two
interpolations assigned to the compiler. The concluding verse
of ch. xxxvii., which the Bishop gives to the original Elohist,
had been given by the other critics to the later Elohist. The
semblance of a different narrative, which the repetition of the
matter contained in it in xxxix. 1 would have produced, if
the latter had been in immediate juxtaposition with the former,
is done away by the interposition of ch. xxxviii., to say nothing
of the customary repetition in commencing a new section or
lesser division. In all such cases of the interruption of the
course of any particular series of events, by the introduction of
any kind of digression, a writer naturally reminds his readers
of what had been last mentioned before his attention had been
diverted to other matters. The repetition therefore would not
justify the supposition of different writers telling each the same
story. But as the Ishmaelites who brought Joseph into Egypt,
were supposed to have been different from the Midianites to
545
CH. XXXIX.
whom the same act is attributed-the Jehovist ascribing it to the
former and the second Elohist to the latter-so also the "officer
of Pharaoh and captain of the guard," to whom he is sold by
these, is supposed to be different from Potiphar to whom he is
sold by the others. In order to bear out this supposition it is
necessary to employ the assistance of the compiler, who inter-
polates the mention of the "officer of Pharaoh and captain of
the guard" in xxxix. 1, having previously interpolated the
name Potiphar in xxxvii. 36. There is no necessity for sup-
posing them to be several on the ground that Joseph's master in
xxxix. is a married man, while the word rendered an officer
in xxxvii. 36 is strictly speaking an eunuch. The word is used
of officers employed in other capacities than those for which
eunuchs, literally speaking, would be required, and it seems to
have had a larger use from the transference of the term to officers
in general. The Redactor, who is supposed to have identified
Potiphar and this officer, would at any rate have expunged this
word, which was not needed, as the title "captain of the guard"
was sufficient, if he thought the term implied a condition that
would have rendered the story of his being a married man an
absurdity. The use of such an argument as this would therefore
tell as forcibly against the performance ascribed to the Redactor,
as against the original unity of the narrative. It was not a
needless addition to the mention of his office to say that he was
an Egyptian. The subsequent employment of Joseph in a high
office of state shows that foreigners were to be found in such
positions. That Joseph's bondage was not only in Egypt, but
to an Egyptian, had special significance in the writer's view.
Some countenance to the theory of a double narrative is, how-
1
1 The word is Hebrew, not Egyptian, and as Wilkinson denies the employment of
Eunuchs in ancient Egypt, it should on that account be understood here in its larger
sense. It is used in xl. 2, 7 of the officers of Pharaoh's household in general, includ-
ing the chief butler and the chief baker. We may also refer to 2 Kings xxv. 19,
where the word is applied to an officer set over the men of war. Fuerst refers to
certain passages of Terence and Juvenal to show that even the literal acceptation of
the word does not render the story as it stands absurd. Modern travellers have also
made observations to the same effect, and mention instances of such persons being
married.
35
546
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
ever, thought to exist in the circumstance, that while in this
chapter Potiphar puts Joseph into prison, and the keeper of
the prison entrusts Joseph with the charge of all that was
under his hand, in ch. xl. the chief butler and baker are
committed to the house of the captain of the guard, who
gives them in charge to Joseph, as if still in his house as
a servant, not as a prisoner. In order, however, to gain this
countenance for the theory it is necessary to impute to the
Redactor the interpolation of the clause in v. 20 of this
chapter, which describes the prison to which Joseph was com-
mitted as "a place where the king's prisoners were bound," this
description being manifestly added with a view to the narrative
following in the next chapter, and to account for Joseph being
in the same prison with the chief butler and baker. An original
writer would naturally thus anticipate what he was just about
to mention. But though the clause comes in naturally, it is not
necessary, and there was therefore nothing to suggest its inter-
polation to a compiler, who would naturally be sparing of need-
less additions. On the other hand, the Redactor is made to
interpolate in xl. 3 the words subjoined to the mention of the
house of the captain of the guard, namely, "into the prison,
the place where Joseph was bound;" and so also every word or
sentence in this latter chapter that might make it appear that
the place where the chief baker and chief butler were in ward
was a prison. These alleged interpolations in xxxix. and xl.
must be considered together, and we shall revert to them
presently.
§ 4. CH. XL. THE CHIEF BUTLER AND BAKER IN PRISON WITH
JOSEPH. ELOHISTIC.
THIS section is given by the critics in general to the second
Elohist, with the exception of certain interpolations. These,
according to the Bishop, are v. 1 and part of 3 and 5, inserted
by the Jehovist to effect a transition from the previous chapter
to the second Elohist's story here, and to make the connexion
CH. XL.
547
1
p
2
more plain. The compiler's additions according to other critics
are more serious and extensive, as already noticed. The only
evidence of their being interpolations is to be found in the
seeming mention of two houses in v. 3, the house of the captain
of the guard, and the house of the prison. But the change of
construction alone shows that there is no interpolation here, as
an interpolator would naturally have followed the existing con-
struction; and it leads one to understand the expressions in a
different sense: "In ward of the house of the captain of the
guard, into the house of the prison." The Hebrew word
rendered “ward," does not mean a place of safe keeping, as the
English word "ward" sometimes does, but the safe keeping,
the custody itself, the act of keeping guard or watch, not the
place where a thing is kept, and there is no instance where
the word is required to be understood otherwise. If then the
genitive house coming after it signified a place or material
house, the meaning would be the guarding or protecting of that
house, which is here out of the question. Hence "the house of
the captain must mean, like "the house of Pharaoh," the
people or servants of the captain, or the captain himself with
his people. The use of the word house in two different senses
in such close proximity is justified by the fact that the second
house is only a part of a compound phrase, the house of round-
ness, or round-house. The word rendered guard denotes execu-
tioners, and Gesenius, s.v., observes the similarity in this respect.
between the chief of these and the Captain Pasha at the Ottoman
Porte. They, under the command of their captain, had charge of
the king's prisoners, and were answerable for the safety of the
prison, which had its own internal keeper also, as in xxxix. 21.
While this keeper found Joseph useful to him in the general
management of the prison, the captain, Potiphar, on putting
into the prison his brother officers, as if out of consideration for
""
בְּמִשְׁמַר בֵּית שַׁר הַמַּבָּחִים אֶל־בֵּית הַכֹּהַר :
2 The LXX. have puλakh, which is ambiguous, but more properly bears an active
sense. If the Hebrew word is ever used of a place, it is of a post where a watch is set.
548
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
them, requires his own servant Joseph, whom he had previously
put into prison, to attend on them. The charge of them which
was given to Joseph does not imply any special favour or con-
fidence towards him now on the captain's part, but rather denotes
the menial office to which he was degraded. And that Joseph
did this not simply as the captain's servant attending on them,
while kept in his master's house, but as himself their fellow
prisoner, is plain from the remorse the chief butler felt when he
recalled to mind Joseph's interpretation of his dream, after
having so long forgotten him, "I do remember my faults this
day." It is also implied in the request of Joseph that the butler
when restored should remember him and make mention of him
to Pharaoh," and bring me," as he said, "out of this house;"
and then in the significant way in which the butler is said to
have forgotten him when restored. It was not likely that a
purchased slave should have expected the king, at the butler's
request, to liberate him from his servitude, but it was a very
natural thing for him to hope to be delivered from an undeserved
imprisonment. Or if Joseph himself might have vainly hoped
that the king might free him from his master's service, the chief
butler could scarcely have felt remorse at not having made so
unreasonable a request, but he would naturally have blamed
himself for allowing him so long to remain in prison without
interceding for his deliverance. There is therefore no ground
for suspecting the interpolation of xxxix. 20 and of xl. 3; and
if these alleged interpolations are not such, so also are not the
other expressions, "in the prison," e. 5, "with him," e. 7, and
"here also I have done nothing that they should put me into
the dungeon," v. 15. It is not allowable, without some other
reason, to say that anything which militates against the appli-
cation of a theory is an interpolation. Rather such expressions
disprove the theory; and there is no ground for the allotment of
chapter xl. to the junior Elohist, as containing a different nar-
rative from that in ch. xxxix. ascribed to the Jehovist.
i
1
CH. XLI. 1–45.
549
§ 5.
CH. XLI.
1-45. PHARAOH'S DREAMS INTERPRETED, AND
JOSEPH ADVANCED. ELOHISTIC.
THE so-called junior Elohist's narrative is supposed to be
carried on in ch. xli., with certain portions of the Jehovist's
history interposed, and with the usual assistance of the Redactor
to bear the credit of whatever is inconsistent with the theory.
As there are two dreams of Pharaoh told, while in v. 15
Pharaoh speaks to Joseph of having dreamed a dream, as if
there were only one, and these dreams have evidently the
same significance, the dream of the kine is given to the Je-
hovist, and that of the ears of corn to the junior Elohist. Now
in either of these narratives it would be sufficient and natural
for the narrator simply to mention that Pharaoh had a dream,
and then let him tell his dream himself; or first to tell the dream
and then to let Pharaoh refer to it without repeating it at length.
Or either of the narrators might both tell the dream himself,
and make Pharaoh afterwards repeat it. But as this is a super-
fluous incumbering of the story, it is less probable that two
independent narrators should both have adopted the same need-
less prolixity, and burdened their narratives with a similar and
superfluous repetition. The natural effect of such an improba-
bility would be to identify the two narratives as original parts.
of the same single story. To evade this effect, however, the
Redactor is made to interpolate in the junior Elohist's narrative
the dream of the kine, from the second clause of v. 1 to the
end of the first of . 5, before that of the ears of corn as told by
the narrator. This, however, is perfectly arbitrary, and mani-
festly only an artifice to evade a difficulty that stands in the
way of the theory. As regards the reference to the dreams as
one dream in v. 15, nothing is more natural. One dreams, and
wakes, and sleeps and dreams on again with fresh images in the
mind, but with a feeling of continuity between the first and
second dreams, or rather the successive parts of the same dream.
Moreover the significance of both dreams was so evidently the
v.
550
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
same, that on this ground also one would naturally speak of
them as one, and yet might afterwards distinguish them in their
successive narration. And in this case it did not need that the
import of the dreams should be understood, in order to perceive
at once that their significance was identical. Moreover, in v. 8
it is said that Pharaoh told "his dream" to the magicians and
wise men, but that none "could interpret them," where the
singular word dream is referred to by the plural pronoun them.
This, at any rate, cannot be attributed to the Redactor; for if
he had changed the number of the pronoun, he would never
have left the noun to which it refers in a different number.¹ As
far as the dreams are concerned they must belong therefore to
the same original narrative.
All three have a share of v. 14 allotted to them; the first
clause, "And Pharaoh sent and called for Joseph," is given to
the junior Elohist; then the next word represented by the
English "and they brought him hastily," and the last clause,
“and he came in unto Pharaoh," are assigned to the Jehovist;
and the words, "from the dungeon, and he shaved and changed
his raiment,” are assigned to the Redactor. The Jehovist, indeed,
might have represented him as in prison, but because the
sentence in xl. 15 which uses the expression dungeon is ascribed
to the Redactor, and the word might be thought to express too
severe a confinement to be consistent with the employment of
Joseph by the keeper of the prison as represented at the close
of ch. xxxix., this present mention of the dungeon and the
words connected with it are also given to the Redactor. Of
course if the word was due to the Redactor in xl. 15, it may be
due to him here also. But though the word is literally a
pit or dungeon, yet it has a wider use as describing a prison in
general. Thus in Jer. xxxvii. 15 the house of Jonathan the
scribe is made the prison, and this is called in the next verse
i', "the house of the dungeon." As in some cases a mild
and euphemistic term would naturally be employed to denote a
The LXX. have made them both singular.
CH. XLI. 1–45.
551
prison, so in others the stronger word would naturally occur.
Thus, as in xl. 15, where the prisoner is speaking of his own
misfortune, he naturally uses the strong term so expressive of
his sense of unjust imprisonment; so in xli. 14, where the con-
trast between Joseph's condition as a prisoner, and his subse-
quent introduction as a minister into Pharaoh's court, is evi-
dently in the writer's mind, the same word is naturally used,
as suggested by this contrast. These natural indications of
originality are not to be thought of in the case of an interpolator,
who only tries to patch up his story, but would never think of
such little touches of reality, which must come spontaneously
in free composition, or not at all.
After Pharaoh has told his dreams-one, as alleged, in the
Jehovist's account, and the other in the junior Elohist's-there
follows a minute subdivision of the remainder of the chapter,
according as the copiousness of detail, and the multiform repre-
sentation of the same particulars, afford opportunity of giving to
each of the narrators a tolerably intelligible account of the
transactions described, the compiler's assistance being sought to
get over any difficulties that stand in the way. Indeed the
whole success of this resolution into two narratives depends on
the parts that belong to the compiler, which, except as intro-
duced by him, would render the partition impracticable. But
now as to the probability of his introducing the parts assigned
him, we may first remark that the repeated assertion that the
dream was one, . 25 and 27, and the reason assigned for
doubling it, r. 32, which of course are ascribed to him, would
have been needless. For even supposing he had put the two
dreams together from different sources, we have already seen
that there was in the existing text, which he had before him,
enough to indicate the unity of the dreams in their import, as
already perceived by Pharaoh. And even if he had felt it
necessary to make Joseph assert this, he would not have betrayed
his hand by repeating the assertion immediately after, and so
creating a suspicion of interpolation. Much less was there any-
552
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
thing to suggest to him the advisableness of introducing a
reason for the duplication of the dream. The reason assigned
would naturally suggest itself to a believer in the significance
of dreams, and while a single dream would possibly pass without
exciting anxiety, a double one would naturally seem to indicate
something serious. The interpreter might also naturally take
occasion from this double indication, to impress on the king's
mind the importance of what was thus foreshown. But the
very naturalness of the conclusion, which the doubling of the
dream would lead one to draw from it, would make the absence
of any express mention of this conclusion the less noticeable;
an inference that every one can draw for himself is not missed,
and an interpolator, who would confine himself to what was
necessary, would not think of introducing it; this would be
the work of a paraphrast. The alleged interpolation in v. 24,
in which the king tells Joseph that the magicians could not.
interpret his dream, would have been also quite gratuitous,
the fact having been previously mentioned in v. 8. Then as
regards the probability of a compiler cutting up two narratives
by different authors into small fragments, oftentimes single
clauses, and afterwards interweaving them, as is supposed to have
been done, it is to be remembered that this Redactor had not
the two narratives drawn out, as it were with the vacant spaces
on one side, and the sentences to fit into those spaces on the
other. The two stories would present themselves each in com-
pact continuity, and the compiler setting out with one would
have had as he went along to pick out the words or phrases or
sentences of the other, to be introduced into their proper places.
One who had so little respect for the sacredness of the original
text, as to add or omit what was needful to make the combined
narrative consistent, would scarcely have taken this trouble.
His probable course would have been to take one or other of the
two narratives, and as he went along to interpolate in his
own words whatever the other narrative supplied as addi-
tional matter. If he might perhaps have transferred the longer
CH. XLI. 1–45.
553
passages from one into the other, he would hardly have done
this in respect to short clauses and simple phrases.
As regards the repetition of the same particulars, which may
seem to indicate the interlacing of two narratives, the first to
be noticed is the sentence, "What God doeth, he showeth
to Pharaoh," v. 25, repeated in v. 28, "What God doeth he
maketh Pharaoh to see." But this latter sentence is introduced
by another that plainly refers to the former. Joseph first tells.
the king that God shows him what he is about to do. He then
tells the general import of the dreams, and after that adds, "This
is the thing which I have spoken unto Pharaoh." What thing
does he mean? Plainly what he had first said, namely “What
God doeth he maketh Pharaoh to see," the only difference being
in the use of a synonymous verb. Thus the assignment of these
words two to different writers is evidently wrong. Then the
following statement of the import of the dream, ascribed to the
Jehovist, is not a needless repetition of the previous indication
of the meaning of it in v. 26, 27, assigned to the junior Elohist.
This latter had only told in a general way that seven years of
plenty and seven years of famine were denoted; when or where
is not expressed. In the subsequent passage, 29-31, the dream
is not repeated, but the place and time, and the grievousness of
the famine following on the abundance of the years of plenty,
are more exactly declared. The place is all the land of Egypt;
the time is at hand for the years of plenty, "Behold they are
coming (i);” the plenty is to be great, but it shall not be
known for the grievousness of the famine which shall afterwards
consume the land. In all this there is plainly no needless repe-
tition, on the supposition of the unity of the narrative. Again
the recommendation to appoint a discreet person over all the
land in v. 33, and to appoint officers to gather food during the
years of plenty, are not mere varied statements of the same
advice, as if belonging to different narratives. Plainly for such
a business one chief administrator would require a large staff of
subordinate officers. The giving of the ring, and the arraying
554
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
in fine linen, and putting a chain of gold on Joseph's neck, are
rather complementary to each other, than mere varied statements
of the same circumstance, as if by different writers. The repeti-
tion of Joseph's appointment over the land of Egypt, 41 and
43, is accounted for by the first being Pharaoh's announcement
of his promotion to Joseph himself, the second, the historian's
statement of the fulfilment of the intention thus announced. In
v. 45 it is said that Joseph went out over the land of Egypt, and
in v. 46, that he went through all the land of Egypt. These are
not statements of the same import; in the first the verb NY:
does not signify a progress through the land, but denotes
Joseph's coming out from the presence of Pharaoh, over the
land, that is as ruler and with authority over it; the verb does
not signify a journey or progress, but an exit, and the preposi-
tion () is that used in the previous mention of Joseph's
appointment over the land, from which, or from v. 46, the
English Version has borrowed the word all, introduced here to
spoil the sense; in the latter case the preposition () is different,
and the verby denotes an extended progress and journey
through the place with which it is connected with a preposi-
tion like that here used: "he passed along in all the land."
It should be observed that in this portion the Bishop of
Natal, whose Jehovist was also the compiler, only gives him
v. 31, expanding and explaining, as he thinks, the remark of
v. 30, that all the plenty should be forgotten in the land of
Egypt; v. 35, because it speaks of collecting all the food, whereas
34 only speaks of the fifth part, though in collecting all the
food, of course he could only collect what was superfluous after
the support of the people, and a fifth may have seemed enough
for the public stores at any rate, as people would themselves
naturally store whatever else they might have to spare;¹ and
1 Indeed it is by no means certain that a fifth part of the produce was what was
meant by "let him five the land of Egypt." Might not this mean that the country
was to be divided into five districts, whether for the purpose of collecting or of storing
the corn? Comp. Exod. xiii. 18, margin, "The Children of Israel went up by five in
a rank (lit. fived) out of the land of Egypt," or perhaps in five different bodies.
CH. XLI. 46-57-XLII. 1–4.
555
finally 40-43, as in like manner expanding what was implied in
39, 44.
This section may be properly closed at this point of Joseph's
exaltation, and the indications of commencing a new one at
v. 46 will presently appear.
§ 6. CH. XLI. 46-57-XLII. 1-4. JOSEPH'S ADMINISTRATION.
COMMENCEMENT OF THE FAMINE. ELOHISTIC.
THE
THE 45th verse of chapter xli. described, as we have just seen,
how Joseph came forth from Pharaoh invested with authority
over the land of Egypt. This was a natural conclusion of the
history of his life in Egypt during his time of depression ending
in this marvellous rise. And as this turning point naturally
marked a close of the former events, so we have in . 46 the
plain indications of a new section. First, there is the statement
of Joseph's age when he stood before Pharaoh at the time of his
exaltation, the event at the time of which the age is specified
not being directly mentioned, but indirectly alluded to, as in
other like cases already noticed: "Joseph was thirty years of age
in his standing before Pharaoh." And while this is thus allu-
sively repeated, so also the sentence, "he went out from the
presence of Pharaoh," is repeated in substance from the previous
verse, as common at the commencement of a new section. If
the Bishop of Natal had been looking for points of agreement,
and not of difference, he would not have failed to notice the
agreement between this 46th verse, and so many others which
he attributes to the Elohist, in the assumptive manner in which
the event at the time of the age specified is alluded to, instead
of being directly mentioned in stating the age of the person
of whom the account is given. Yet this verse is not given to
the Elohist. For out of this passage as limited above, the
Bishop gives to his Jehovist the commencing verse, 46, and
then from 48-55, describing the years of plenty, the birth
of Joseph's sons, and the commencement of the famine;
and he observes that the notice of time in . 46 is that which, he
556
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
had already remarked, had introduced great discrepancies
into the story. These discrepancies, however, are all of the
Bishop's making. He will not allow what the chronology of the
book as it stands at present requires, the interval of thirty-six
years from Esau's marriage to Jacob's departure for Haran. If
the Elohistic narrative, which he separates, admits of shorter
dates in this case, it certainly is not free from the abnormal
ages in regard to other cases which characterise this book, while
we have just seen that on verbal grounds this very notice of time
in v. 46 connects itself with the Elohistic notices of time else-
where: "Abram was a son of seventy-five years in his departing
from Haran,” xii. 4; "Abraham was a son of ninety and nine
years in his circumcising the flesh of his foreskin," xvii. 24, etc. ;
"Joseph was a son of thirty years in his standing before Pharaoh."
But while the Bishop only gives v. 47 and the two last verses
of this chapter to the writer of the greater part of the preceding
narrative, the second Elohist, and then again gives the first four
verses of xlii. to the Jehovist, others, agreeing as to these com-
mencing verses of xlii., differ from the Bishop in much more.
minutely subdividing the remainder. In this total disagreement
of the partitionists themselves it can hardly be expected that
the traditional belief in the unity of this passage should be sur-
rendered.
§ 7. CH. XLII. 5-XLVI. 7. THE DESCENT INTO EGYPT. ELOHISTIC.
(1.) XLII. 5-38. FIRST VISIT OF JOSEPH'S BRETHREN TO EGYPT.
(2.) XLIII. SECOND VISIT, WITH BENJAMIN.
(3.) XLIV.
BENJAMIN IS TAKEN.
(4.) XLV. JOSEPH IS MADE KNOWN TO HIS BRETHREN AND
SENDS FOR HIS FATHER.
(5.) XLVI. 1-7. JACOB'S JOURNEY TO EGYPT.
(1.) THIS long passage forms a very unbroken narrative, but
has certain stages indicated as above. The significance of re-
garding xlii. 5, 6, as the commencement of a new section has
already been fully insisted on. The repetition of the statement
of v. 3, that Joseph's brethren went down to buy corn in Egypt,
CH. XLII. 5-XLVI. 7.
557
•
in the first clause of v. 5, "The sons of Israel came to buy
among those that came;" the next clause, repeating that the
famine was in the land of Canaan, fully intimated already in
xli. 57 and the beginning of xlii., and the announcement in v. 6
that Joseph was governor over the land and sold to all the
people, all appear now as the prefatory recapitulation, prefixed
in so many cases to new sections. Thus the assigning of v. 5,
and the first part of 6, to the second Elohist by the Bishop of
Natal, and the connecting of 1-5 with xli. 54 first clause, as
part of the Jehovistic narrative, by others, is shown to have no
necessity on the score of these supposed needless repetitions.
The only other part of this chapter which the Bishop gives to
the second Elohist is the commencement of t. 7, "Joseph saw
his brethren, and he knew them," as being repeated again in . S.
To this we shall presently revert, only here remarking that the
other critics give it to the Jehovist, while the second Elohist
gets the repetition in v. 8. This plainly shows how conjectural
and arbitrary is this whole assignment of parts to the different
supposed authors whose writings have been, according to this
theory, combined into one narrative. In the more complex sub-
division, not adopted by the Bishop, the compiler is made
responsible for the first half of v. 6. Both the Jehovist and the
second Elohist having already represented Joseph as governor
of all the land of Egypt and charged with the disposing of the
supplies of food, the Redactor is now made to say that "Joseph
was governor over the land, and he it was that sold to all the
people of the land." But now, when Joseph's elevation had been
previously so fully set forth in the narrative which the Redactor
had just compiled, what possible motive could he have had, or
what could have suggested to him, to repeat what had been so
distinctly and repeatedly stated already? An original narrator
might naturally mention as he went on, and especially at the
beginning of a new section, that Joseph was still in the same
position when his brethren came, as he had been during the
years of plenty and the earlier years of the famine; a compiler
558
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
that
putting together existing materials would see no need of this,
and would not have thought of it. The latter half of v. 6, men-
tioning how Joseph's brethren came and bowed themselves before
him with their faces to the ground, is given to the junior Elohist,
because it was thought fit to assign to him the account of Joseph's
dreams, of which this was the fulfilment. The Jehovist then
takes up v. 7, and tells how Joseph knew his brethren, but made
himself strange and spake roughly to them, "and said unto
them, ye are spies," the first of these latter words, "and said,"
being once omitted by the Redactor as superfluous and incon-
venient, and the rest being picked out of v. 9. The latter part
of v. 7, v. 8, and the remainder of v. 9, are then given to the
junior Elohist, as having reference to Joseph's dreams, and with
v. 12 making up an intelligible narrative, while v. 11 contains
the contradiction of Joseph's brethren to the charge of being
spies, as given in the words of the Jehovist. Now the only
shadow of a reason for supposing two narratives here lies in the
seeming repetition in v. 8 of the statement made in v.
Joseph knew his brethren, but that they knew him not. It is
not, however, a simple repetition, needless on the supposition of
one author, and therefore indicative of a second. The statement
in v. 7 is that Joseph recognised his brethren, but dissembled or
feigned himself another person. Nothing is said of their not
knowing him. The effort to dissemble might not have been
successful, and it is not therefore a mere unmeaning repetition
to add that he recognised them, but they did not recognise him,
these two clauses standing as it were in an opposition to one
another; it is the Hebrew way of saying, that though he recog-
nised them they did not recognise him. It is also to be observed
that the use of the same verb, 77, in both verses, while a choice
between this and the more general word existed, is rather
indicative of the sameness of the writer. In the few other places
where the former word occurs in this book (xxvii. 23, xxxi.
32, xxxvii. 32, 33, xxxviii. 25, 26), it is in passages like v. 7
ascribed to the Jeho vist, and doubtless if it was convenient to
1,
CH. XLII. 5-XLVI. 7.
559
assign v. 8 to the Jehovist also, its use there would be regarded
as an indication of his authorship. The only remaining passage
n this chapter assigned to the junior Elohist, 21, 22, 23,¹ was
already insisted on, when xxxvii. was under consideration,
as marking the unity of parts of that chapter supposed to have
had different authors, and it is unnecessary now to repeat what
was then said.2
(2.) (3.) As ch. xlii, with the exceptions which have been con-
sidered, is ascribed to the Jehovist, so is the entire of xliii., and
xliv. with the exception of the two first verses, which are
supposed to have been introduced by the Redactor. In the
subsequent part of the latter chapter nothing is said of the money
being found in the sacks, when search was made for the silver
cup, while in 1, 2, the corn money is put into every man's sack,
as well as the cup into Benjamin's. Now so far is this from
being an indication of the Redactor's meddling, it is rather
evidence that he was not the author of these verses, for however
he might have thought it well to introduce the direction, which
Joseph is represented as giving his steward, to put the cup into
Benjamin's sack, it is plain he would not have gratuitously
added the putting of the money into the sacks of all, which
there was nothing in the subsequent narrative to suggest to
his mind. Moreover, the want which would plainly have
been felt in the absence of any directions about the cup, and
the abrupt way in which it is referred to in v. 5, as if the reader
was aware of the circumstance, is rather an argument in favour
1 "And they said one to another, We are verily guilty concerning our brother, etc."
2 The earlier partitionists, as De Wette, saw evidence of a double narrative in the
retention of Simeon as an hostage, according to the account given in this chapter,
while in the next chapter, Judah, in speaking to his father, tells him that Joseph
protested they should not see his face again unless they brought Benjamin,
without any mention of Simeon, as if Joseph had relied on the pressure of the famine
as sufficient to compel the sending of Benjamin. The weakness of this is well shown
by Ranke, I., p. 265, 6. He observes that if Jacob's partiality for Benjamin was
such as to make him indifferent to the deliverance of Simeon, or if Judah was so
thoughtless as to forget to urge this consideration, these are matters that belong to the
region of morals, and not of criticism. He also notices that in xliii. 14 Jacob in
sending Benjamin prays not only for his return, but for Simeon's also. This pretext
for division of the narrative seems now to be abandoned.
560
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
of the genuineness of the commencing verses, than an indication
that they were subsequently added.¹
(4.) The next chapter also, xlv., is given by most of the
same critics at full length to the Jehovist, with the exception of
v. 2, 3. The bestowal of these two verses on the junior Elohist
is certainly ingenious. The last passage that had been ascribed
to him, xlii. 21-23, describes the remorse of the brethren
expressed amongst themselves, and Reuben's reproach of the
others for not heeding his advice, and represents them as sup-
posing that Joseph did not understand what they were saying.
By connecting with this xlv. 2, 3, Joseph's resolution to preserve
the character of a stranger is overcome by the sayings of his
brethren, which he understands, though they think he does
not; he weeps aloud, tells them he is Joseph, and asks for his
father, while they are so confounded that they cannot make any
answer. And as these verses are not essential to the narrative
contained in this present chapter, there is the more colour for
appropriating them to the supposed second Elohist. Of course
this depends on the correctness of the supposition that he was
the writer of xlii. 21-23, against which a strong argument has
been already adduced. And though the matter contained in
xlv. 2, 3 is not necessary to the remainder of the narrative, it
is not superfluous. Joseph's weeping when about to reveal
himself; the absence of restraint in this, so that the people in
the house heard him; his asking if his father yet lived, which,
1 Another argument of De Wette, in favour of a double narrative, is the circum-
stance that, according to xlii. 27, one of the brethren finds his money in the sack
on the way home, while, according to v. 35, every man's money was found in his
sack on his return home. And then Stahelin adds a new difficulty, that, according
to xliii. 21, the brethren on their return tell Joseph that, when they came to the
inn, they had found every man's money in his sack. The former objection is treated
by Ranke with deserved contempt: he says it almost sounds like a jest. To the
latter he replies that the statement in xliii. 21 is not made by the historian in his
own person, but by the brethren speaking to Joseph; that all the brethren had found
their money, the commencement of the discovery being made on the way, though
the completion of it not till they had returned home; and that in their speech to
Joseph, it was not the place where they found the money, but the fact that they had
discovered it, which they were concerned in mentioning, and that therefore they
mention the two discoveries together (I. p. 266, 7). Such a reference of the entire
discovery to its commencement is quite natural, and this objection is now abandoned.
CH. XLII 5-XLVI. 7.
561
in the outburst of his feelings, he forgets was implied in the
previous saying of his brethren; their confusion when he
announces to them that he is Joseph; all these particulars, if
not necessary, are at least natural, and such as might be
expected just where they occur; and Joseph's re-assertion in v. 4,
that he is Joseph, is not a needless repetition, as his brethren
would naturally seem perplexed and incredulous at the first
announcement of so unexpected a fact. The ingenuity shown
in connecting these verses 2, 3 with xlii. 21-23 is not therefore
a sufficient justification of the disruption of the narrative as it
now stands in the existing book.
The Bishop of Natal does not concur with these critics in
giving . 1, 2 to the second Elohist. He also differs from them in
his supposition that 16-18 belongs to that writer, on the ground
that Joseph himself had already told his brethren to bring their
father down, and that he would provide for them in the land of
Goshen, as if no need of any directions from Pharaoh existed.
Clearly it was the writer's intention to represent Joseph as
acting on his own authority, in bidding his brethren to bring
their father and families, and promising to provide for them in
Egypt, or at least anticipating as certain the obtaining the
requisite authority from the king. And with this there is no in-
consistency in supposing that the king should also spontaneously
suggest the same thing to Joseph, or that Joseph should have
sought his authority, and obtained it in the words contained in
17, 18.
The change from thou to ye in 19 is intelligible
enough. The command given to Joseph in 17, 18 is to be
communicated to the whole party: "Say unto your brethren,
This do ye," etc. They are to lade their beasts with the need-
ful corn, and go back to Canaan, and to bring their father and
households to Egypt. But now a difficulty occurs as to the
means of transit for their wives and little ones. Accordingly,
Pharaoh says to Joseph, "And thou are commanded,"-thou hast
my orders for what I am going to say,-" This do ye," etc. The
authority is given directly only to Joseph; the command is to
36
562
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
be accomplished by all. One writer adding to another would
have been likely to have avoided this difference in number.
The Bishop also gives the first clause of 21, "And the sons of
Israel did so," to the second Elohist in sequence with v. 18,
"for how could they either 'take the wagons,' which Joseph
had to give them, or 'not regard their goods' while they
were yet in Egypt?" This is so weak that it is enough to
state it without remark. The words only mean that they did
their part in compliance with the king's directions.
(5.) The commencement of xlvi. down to the first clause of v. 5
is given to the compiler, or by the Bishop, with the rest of v. 5,
to the Jehovist, who, indeed in his theory acts the part of the
compiler. The particulars, however, mentioned in these verses-
the sacrifices at Beersheba, the nightly vision, and the divine
communication made to Jacob-are all matters of too substantial
importance, and too little suggested by anything in the other
parts of this narrative, to have been the pure invention of a
person acting in the capacity of a mere compiler. On the
other hand, there is no inconsistency between the spontaneous-
ness of Jacob's journey as represented in v. 1, and the mention
of his being carried as described in v. 5. Neither does the
dimness of Jacob's sight, implied in the promise in v. 4,
that Joseph should put his hands on his eyes, present any
inconsistency with Jacob's expression of his readiness to die
because he had seen Joseph's face, as related in v. 30. This is a
very natural and common way of speaking, and may be instanced
by reference to xlviii. 10, 11, where, though Jacob's eyes are so
dim that he cannot see, yet he says notwithstanding, that
though he had not thought to see Joseph's face, yet God had
showed him his seed. It is for this reason that the first clause
of v. 10 in that chapter is given to the junior Elohist. But there
is no necessity for this. Nothing is more common than to speak
of seeing when the sight is not merely imperfect, but wholly lost.
The habit of thus speaking, especially with regard to persons,
is too strong to be left off. After the Redactor has introduced
CH. XLVI. 8-XLVII. 11.
563
the commencing verses of xlvi. ascribed to him, the Jehovist
continues his narrative in the concluding part of v. 5, and then
in 6, 7, the Elohist, of whom nothing has been heard since the
first verse of ch. xxxvii., tells us that they took their cattle and
their goods, and that Jacob and all his seed with him went
down into Egypt. Now it will be observed that these verses.
stand in the closest connexion with xlvi. 5, but are disconnected
from xxxvii. 1 both grammatically and otherwise. But it is
necessary that the Elohist, brief as the narrative ascribed to him
has become, should not omit all mention of so important an event
as the descent into Egypt. Hence these verses are taken out of
their proper connexion here and appropriated to the Elohist,
the copious enumeration of the various persons and possessions
carried with them by the sons of Jacob having a general
resemblance to the forms in which the like migrations are
described through the book generally, which are all given to the
Elohist as his notices of these migrations, on the ground of their
general similarity. They will be more closely compared here-
after, when we examine the summary view which the Bishop has
given of the characteristic peculiarities of the different authors.
$ 8. CH. XLVI. S-XLVII. 11. THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL WHO CAME
INTO EGYPT, AND THEIR SETTLEMENT THERE. NO NAME
OF GOD.
A NEW section evidently begins here, with the enumeration
of the Children of Israel, a family designation which in this case
includes Jacob himself, who came into Egypt. Some give this
to the later Elohist, with an interpolation in v. 12 by the com-
piler, while the Bishop of Natal assigns it to the original
Elohist, giving the interpolation in v. 12 to the Jehovist, as also
a part of 20 and 26. The interpolation in v. 12, attributed by
one party to the compiler, by the other to the Jehovist, is the
notice that "Er and Onan died in the land of Canaan, and the
sons of Pharez were Hezron and Hamul." That these could not
have come into Egypt, but must have been born in Egypt, seems
564
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
a necessary consequence of the chronology of the book as it exists,
and has caused great difficulty. But whatever its weight may
be, the difficulty is made still greater by the gratuitous assump-
tion, that the first or second Elohist had originally represented
Er and Onan as having gone down into Egypt, the mention
of their death in the land of Canaan, and the enumeration in
their place of Hezron and Hamul, being regarded as an
interpolation. But the Jehovist having written ch. xxxviii.,
or a compiler having it before him, and having placed it
in its present position plainly on chronological grounds,
would have known just as well that he was creating a new
difficulty, as that he was correcting an old one. That the
Elohistic writer did not know of the death of Er and Onan in
the land of Canaan is a gratuitous assumption. The difficulty
itself, as the account now stands, is something of the same kind
as that of enumerating Benjamin amongst the sons of Jacob
that were born to him in Padan-Aram. Hezron and Hamul,
though born afterwards, came to take the place, for genealogical
purposes, of Er and Onan, in this list, just as Ephraim and Manas-
seh came by Jacob's adoption to enjoy the same rank. Some at
any rate of the sons of Benjamin, and certainly two, who were only
his grandsons according to Numb. xxvi. 40, must likewise have
been born in Egypt. The additions which appear in the LXX.
are not reckoned amongst those that came into Egypt, but they
tend to raise a suspicion that this enumeration, even in the He-
brew text, may have had additions made to it in after times, and
that the whole may have been regarded as not belonging to the
original narrative at all. The grammatical connexion of v. 28
with v. 7 would certainly be better than either the present con-
nexion with 27, or its connexion with the previous Jehovistic
sentence, in v. 5.
After the enumeration of those that came into Egypt, the
Jehovist is made by all to resume the narrative, and carries
it on to the close of the section, only that the Bishop thinks the
passage xlvii. 7-11 to be a fragment of the original Elohistic
CH. XLVII. 12-26.
565
narrative. This is grounded on the absence of any mention of
the bringing up of Jacob from Goshen to where Pharaoh held
his court, which, if all were by the same hand, we should
expect to have been told us. The Bishop also suggests, after
Boehmer, the improbability that the same writer, having said
that Pharaoh had commanded to settle Joseph's family in the land
of Goshen, should so soon after say that he settled them in the land
of Rameses. But he admits that the two designations must have
been in some sense equivalent. One name was doubtless more
definite than the other; the command was to give a settlement
in the land of Goshen, and this was carried into effect by placing
them at Rameses in that land. A compiler or subsequent writer
would have avoided this disagreement in these names.
§ 9. CH. XLVII. 12-26. THE PROGRESS OF THE FAMINE. NO MENTION
OF GOD.
THE narrative having brought Jacob and his family to a final
settlement in the land of Egypt, now returns in a new section
to the history of the famine. It reverts to the promise of
Joseph in xlv. 10, 11, that if they would come down with their
children and all that they had, he would nourish them during
the continuance of the famine. This we are now told he did.
His father's household had bread, but there was no bread in all
the land of Egypt. At last the people sell their land to Pharaoh,
and a new system of the tenure of land is introduced by Joseph.
This is all assigned by the Bishop and others to the Jehovist.
But the Bishop remarks in reference to Boehmer's assignment
of it to the compiler, that he does this on the external ground,
that by reference to Herodotus it would appear that the passage
could not have been written at so early an age as that of the
Elohist or Jehovist; which reason the Bishop, suspecting the
accuracy of everything but his own theory, says "assumes
that the accounts here given are accurate and true accounts of
Egyptian matters, which is by no means certain." Now, what-
ever may be thought of the chronological argument, the correct-
566
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
ness of the narrative, as regards the tenure of land, is fully
borne out by the reference to Herodotus ii. 109. Though this
system of land tenure is said by Herodotus to have been
established by Sesostris, yet Sesostris is too mythical a person-
age, too much in the nature of a general receiver of the credit
of important transactions of unknown dates and performers, to
warrant any argument founded on the supposed time of his
reign and exploits. On this subject a reference may be made to
Hengstenberg's, Die Bücher Mose's und Aegypten, p. 60ff.
§ 10. CH. XLVII. 27-XLIX. JACOB IS SICK, BLESSES JOSEPH'S SONS
AND HIS OWN, AND DIES. ELOHISTIC WITH JEHOVAH ONCE.
THE new section commencing here repeats as usual that
Israel dwelt in the land of Egypt, in the country of Goshen,
and adds that they grew and multiplied and had possessions,
Israel being used as the family name in this verse. It next
mentions that Jacob lived (not dwelt as before) seventeen years
in Egypt, and was one hundred and forty and seven years of
age when the time of his death arrived. He sends for Joseph,
and makes him swear that he will not bury him in Egypt, but
will carry him to the burying place of his fathers. The Bishop
gives the latter part of 27 and v. 28, and others the entire of both
verses, to the Elohist, as eking out with the customary formula
of the growth of the family, and the age of the head of it, the
brief abstract to which that supposed writer's narrative has now
dwindled. The remaining two verses of xlvii. the Bishop gives
to the Jehovist, and others to the compiler, whose interference
there was nothing here to suggest.
In xlviii. 1 we are told that Joseph being informed that
Jacob was sick took his two sons, and went with them to see his
father. This circumstance, as related in the two first verses, is
attributed to the junior Elohist by some. It appears by the
introductory clause, "It came to pass after these things," to
have been subsequent to the particulars mentioned in the con-
cluding verses of the last chapter, which are ascribed to the
C
CH. XLVII. 27-XLIX.
567
1
Jehovist. The theory, however, makes these verses the com-
mencement of the junior Elohist's account of the same final
interview between Jacob and Joseph which the Jehovist had
just before mentioned, and these commencing words of the
chapter, indicative of subsequence, instead of being regarded as
an evidence against the theory, are pronounced to be the Re-
dactor's interpolation, added by him in order to convert the one
transaction as described by different authors, into two as if
related by one. Having noticed how this difficulty, which offers
itself to the theory at the very outset, is thus quietly set aside,
we will take separately the particulars assigned to each of the
three writers, who are supposed to describe the final interview
between Jacob and Joseph.
1. In ch. xlvii. 27, 28, the Elohist is represented as
mentioning that the family of Jacob had possessions in
Egypt and multiplied therein, and as setting forth the num-
ber of years which Jacob lived in Egypt, together with his
entire age. The next passage ascribed to him is 3-7 of the
present chapter, in which, without any reference to the time,
place, or circumstances, as the passage is separated from its
context, Jacob is said to have told Joseph of God's appearance
to him at Luz, to have adopted Joseph's sons as his own, and to
have related the death and burial of Rachel. As in this passage
the name by which God is said to have appeared to Jacob is
El-Shaddai, the reference is of course to the appearance of God
to Jacob at Bethel on his return from Padan-Aram, as related in
xxxvi. 9-15, rather than to that which took place when he was
going thither. Hence as xxxv. 9-15 was ascribed to the Elohist,
this is also attributed to him, the verbal peculiarities being
borrowed from that passage, as in it they were adopted from
ch. xvii. This manifest adoption renders the present passage
unavailing as an independent evidence of the Elohist's style.
That they were by the same author it does not concern us to
1 The Bishop of Natal, however, gives these two first verses to the Jehovist, as his
connecting link for introducing the Elohistic verses next following 3-7. The Jehovist
with the Bishop acts the part of the compiler.
568
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
deny. But it is to be remembered that, according to this parti-
tion, the Elohist, as far as his story has yet reached, has no
mention of the names of the sons of Jacob, nor of his wives'
names.¹ Yet here are Joseph, Reuben, Simeon, and Rachel,
spoken of as well-known persons. Now, however the Elohist
himself may have known these names, it is not likely that he
would have thus incidentally introduced them into his narrative
in a way that implies a previous mention of them, no such men-
tion having been made. The force of this objection is sought to
be weakened by making the comparison with Reuben and
Simeon to be an interpolation. It was not so easy to get rid
of Joseph's name, as the adoption of his sons Ephraim and
Manasseh rendered its presence here unavoidable; and there
was no way of disposing of the reference to the death and
burial of Rachel, except by leaving it in connexion with the
preceding verses. Besides it was necessary, if possible, to con-
fine the use of the name Padan here found to the Elohist. A
better reason, however, for connecting this latter verse with
those preceding it will presently be noticed. As the Bishop of
Natal makes the Elohist to mention the particulars here noted,
he gains but little by making the clause, "as Reuben and
Simeon they shall be mine," an interpolation.
With this passage of ch. xlviii. is connected another, also by
the Elohist, in xlix., namely from v. 29 to the end. In this
Jacob charges his sons to bury him in the cave of Machpelah,
where, he says, they buried Abraham and Sarah, and Isaac and
Rebekah, and he buried Leah. One reason for giving this to
the Elohist is of course that the purchase of the cave by Abra-
ham having been originally related by the Elohist, as the theory
assumes, every subsequent mention of it is also ascribed to him,
1 The Bishop of Natal thus quotes and comments on Boehmer: "We cannot
possibly think of E for these verses, since he has nowhere named the sons of Jacob,
not even Joseph, much less his grandsons-[yes he has in xlvi. 8-27, and expressly
Manasseh and Ephraim, v. 20]-and thus v. 3, 4, which most strongly remind
us of him, would have no hold in his narrative. We must therefore have
recourse to the compiler's reminiscences of the Elohistic formula." But the Bishop
should remember that Boehmer gives the passage to which he refers to the second
Elohist.
CH. XLVII, 27-XLIX.
569
"the
there being one further reference to it, which winds up
book of Genesis by the Elohist," namely 1. 12, 13. The purchase
of that burying place is described at full length in ch. xxiii.
The very next passage ascribed to the Elohist is xxv. 7-11,
where the burial of Abraham is related, and the cave and field
are described in words borrowed from that account in xxiii.;
as much as would make if put together a chapter, such as many
in this book, then intervenes, and the burying place is again
described in the same familiar words at the close of xlix.; and
this description is immediately repeated in the very next passage
ascribed to the Elohist, 1. 12, 3. These repetitions are not so
remarkable in the existing history, where they are all separated
by considerable intervals; but in the brief narrative of the
Elohist, as picked out of matter with which it is supposed to
have been combined, such a frequent repetition, with such brief
intervals, or rather, except in one case, in the closest proximity,
seems almost absurd, and may be regarded as an evidence
against the theory which supposes such unmeaning babbling in
so otherwise concise a narrative.
If no reason for the reference to the death and burial of
Rachel, as it stands in its present connexion in ch. xlviii., could
be assigned, then it might be thought that it was originally
mentioned with immediate reference to the charge of Jacob
respecting his own burial where his father and Leah were
buried, as following it in the Elohist's narrative in xlix. 29-31,
and thus the connexion of these passages might gain some
support. But the mention of Rachel's death, with which her
burial is associated in the tender recollections of the Patriarch,
is to be accounted for sufficiently, as the narrative now stands.
Jacob had several sons by Leah; he had only two by Rachel,
all possibility of a greater number having been precluded by
her death at the birth of Benjamin. In respect to her memory,
and in some measure to increase the number of her sons in the
reckoning of the tribes, he adopts Joseph's two sons as his own,
and takes them into the same rank as the two eldest of Leah's
570
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
sons. Having done this, he immediately assigns as a reason the
early death of Rachel: "And I,-in my coming from Padan,
Rachel died by me." The cause of her death he does not men-
tion, but it was what gave significance to the reference to it in
the present connexion. She had died in childbirth, and thus
proved that had she survived she might have had other sons.
This being rendered impossible by her death, the sons of Joseph
are adopted as if they had been her immediate offspring, and
not merely her grandsons. The connecting conjunction is 1,
but this in many instances has the force of for. Gen. xx. 3,
1 Sam. xv. 6, Job xxiii. 16, Is. iii. 7 and xxxix. 1, are all clear
instances. In fact, this conjunction expresses the connexion of
ideas in general, the particular nature of the connexion being
determined by circumstances. The grammatical connexion of
the words in the present passage being disturbed, the conjunc-
tion may, however, be taken as a simple copulative, and an
ellipsis of words expressing the causal connexion may be sup-
posed: "And I do this, because Rachel died as I came from
Padan." The painfulness of the recollection may be expressed
by the broken construction. This reference to the death of
Rachel connects the present passage with the account of that
event in ch. xxxv., which, though there, as here, it immediately
follows the appearance of God to Jacob at Bethel, is assigned to
a different writer. This reason for introducing the mention of
Rachel's death in the present passage is sufficient without any
relation to the subsequent charge of Jacob to his sons in general
respecting his burial, supposed to follow it in the Elohist's nar-
rative. To make the charge to follow thus, violence has to be
done to the existing text in xlix. 29, "and he charged them."
This pronoun connecting the passage with the mention of all
the sons of Jacob in the preceding part of that chapter, is incom-
patible with the connexion of the passage with xlviii. 3-7, in
which there is no mention of any of the sons of Jacob as present
but Joseph. Hence it is alleged that the original reading of the
Elohist was "his sons," and that the Redactor in disconnecting
CH. XLVII. 27-XLIX.
571
it was.
the passage from its original context, and placing it where it
now stands, changed these words into the pronoun them. There
would have been no need of his doing so, as the other words,
"his sons," would have answered the purpose well enough.
Rather there would have been a reason against the change; for
the verse immediately preceding does not mention the sons, but
the twelve tribes of Israel. The Redactor would therefore most
probably, indeed one might say certainly, have left the text as
In the last verse of ch. xlix., the clause, "he gathered
his feet into the bed," is by some supposed to be interpolated
from the second Elohist. The reason for this is that xlviii. 2,
in which it is said that Jacob strengthened himself and sat upon
the bed, being given to the junior Elohist, this clause must go
with it. On the supposition of the present united text being
the original, the clause comes in just as naturally and properly
here, having still reference to xlviii. 2, and there is no reason
for its removal, except that it would be out of place in the
Elohist's separated narrative.
up
>>
2. The account of the last scene of Jacob's life, as attributed
to the junior Elohist, may now be considered. In xlviii. 1, 2,
Joseph is told of his father's sickness, and takes his two sons to
see him. Jacob is informed of the visit, and he strengthens
himself and sits on the bed. Then in . 10, first clause, this
writer adds that "the eyes of Israel were dim for age, he could
not see.' In 14, 15, Joseph brings his sons to Jacob, Ephraim
towards his left hand and Manasseh towards his right, while
Israel, guiding his hands wittingly, lays the right hand on
Ephraim, the youngest, and the left on Manasseh, the eldest.
No remonstrance against this appears in the junior Elohist's
narrative, which next mentions, in r. 20, that Israel blessed
them in that day saying, "In thee shall Israel bless, saying,
God make thee as Ephraim and as Manasseh;" and that he set
Ephraim before Manasseh. After this follows the clause just
remarked on, in xlix. 33, stating "that he gathered up his feet
into the bed." No mention is given to this writer of Jacob's
572
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
death, but immediately on the gathering up of Jacob's feet
there follows, in 1. 22, the clause, " And Joseph dwelt in Egypt,
and his father's house." Thus baldly closes the junior Elohist's
story. Its very baldness proves that it was never written in
this form, and there is not the shadow of a pretext for supposing
that it ever existed in any other form. It contains no particulars
that, being repeated, might be supposed to indicate the blending
of several accounts. For though the crossing of Jacob's hands
in blessing the sons of Joseph, as told in 13 and 14, is again
referred to in v. 17, yet in this latter there is no direct mention
of the act, but a reference to it as having been previously done
and observed by Joseph. This is not the repetition of a different
narrative, but the natural reference of the same history to what
had been previously mentioned. The blessing of the sons of
Joseph in v. 20 is not a repetition of that contained in 16, which
is ascribed to the Jehovist. This is a prayer for the Divine
blessing on the lads, the other a prediction that that blessing
should be so effectual, that the best wish any one could express
for another was, that God would make him as Ephraim and
Manasseh. There is not one particular in the portions assigned
to this writer, that might not most naturally have co-existed in
one original narrative with all that is assigned to the other
supposed authors of the alleged compilation.
3. The Jehovist's narrative, which in the Bishop of Natal's ar-
rangement includes all that is given by others to the second Elohist,
now remains to be considered. The concluding part of ch. xlvii.,
ascribed to the Jehovist, had represented Jacob, as the time of
his death was drawing near, to have sent for Joseph and made
him swear not to bury him in Egypt, but with his fathers. The
existing narrative treats this as prior to the final interview, and
it has been seen how the evidence of its priority has been got
rid of by assuming that the Redactor interpolated the com-
mencing words of ch. xlviii. To the concluding verses of the
preceding chapter the Jehovist now adds, in v. 8, that Israel
beheld Joseph's sons and asked, "Who are these?" Their
CH. XLVII. 27-XLİX.
573
presence with Joseph is accounted for in the history as it stands
by the statement in v. 1, that Joseph had brought them with
him. But in the separated Jehovist's account, there is no men-
tion of the lads having come with their father, but quite abruptly
Israel asks who they were, as being present. This is not a mode
of narration natural to a Hebrew writer. The Hebrew historians.
seldom leave anything to be inferred from subsequent allusions,
but generally tell all that is needed directly and minutely. To
the enquiry who they were, Joseph replies in v. 9, and Jacob
bids him bring the lads near and he will bless them. The
benediction of the lads occupies so important a place in the
narrative, that it is still more improbable that their presence
should be left to inference and not directly mentioned. The
dimness of Jacob's eyes being omitted, as part of the junior
Elohist's story, the Jehovist proceeds in the latter part of v. 10
to say that Joseph brought them near, and that Israel embraced
them. In v. 12 he says that he had not thought to have seen
Joseph's face, but that God had showed him also his seed; and
then the clause, " and Joseph brought them out from between
his knees," being ascribed to the Redactor, it is added in the
Jehovist's words, "and he bowed himself with his face to the
earth." The reason for calling in the aid of the Redactor to
remove from the Jehovist's narrative, as his interpolation, the
withdrawing the lads from between the knees of Israel is plain.
It was the junior Elohist who, as is alleged, had told that Israel
had strengthened himself and sat upon the bed. It was only by
his having assumed this sitting posture, that the lads could have
been between his knees when he embraced them. Hence to have
made the Jehovist represent them in this position would have
been absurd, and the Redactor is therefore supposed to have put
in this particular. It may safely be asserted he never did so.
The clause as it now stands indicates an original writer who
had pictured to his mind the entire scene, as represented in the
existing united history, in the vivid and dramatic form in which
it is presented to us. The circumstance in question was not
574
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
needed to the completeness of the history, but greatly adds to
its life and reality. Perhaps there is not in the whole book a
particular, not of importance to the history, thus incidentally
mentioned, that renders the whole story more natural and con-
sistent. As an original writer would describe the picture he
had before his mind, this particular might have come spon-
taneously and almost unconsciously. A mere compiler putting
together with a certain slavish ingenuity the disjecta membra,
into which he had resolved the materials that came to his hand
for the purpose of combining them into one narrative, would
never have dreamt of introducing a circumstance that there was
no occasion for mentioning, and which the mechanical operation
in which he was engaged would be far enough from suggesting
to his mind. The conception of supplying this particular, for
the sake of giving a touch of reality to a story which did not
require it, would imply a flash of genius not to be thought of in
one engaged in such peddling work.
The Jehovist having, however, represented Joseph as bowing
to the ground before his father, then relates in v. 15 and 16,
without any previous mention of the laying on of Jacob's hands,
how he blessed Joseph, and implored the Divine benediction on
the lads. After this he says that Joseph saw that his father
laid his right hand on Ephraim's head, and was displeased and
tried to correct the mistake, as he thought it, but that his father
refused and confirmed what he had already done. The junior
Elohist's mention of the blessing in v. 20 being passed over,
Israel tells Joseph that he is dying, and says that God will
bring him and his brethren to the land of his fathers, and so
he gives him a portion above his brethren, which he had taken
from the Amorite with his sword and with his bow. He then
summons the rest of his sons, and pronounces on them the pro-
phetic sentences recorded in ch. xlix. 1-28, the Redactor getting
credit for the last clause of v. 28, "and he blessed them, each
according to his blessing, he blessed them." But as some of the
oracles pronounced by Jacob were not properly blessings at all,
•
CH. L.
575
it seems strange that the Redactor, not finding the word applied
to these oracles in general, should have gratuitously incumbered
the narrative with the difficulty of a word which could not be
applied to them all in its proper acceptation.
As the Bishop of Natal unites the Johovistic and second
Elohist accounts into one, and makes his Jehovist the compiler,
of course the preceding remarks are in many particulars inap-
plicable to his simpler partition. The reasons, however, on
which these critics proceed not being sufficient to produce
unanimity amongst themselves, they have the less claim to
disturb the traditional belief of the unity of the history as it
exists.
§ 11. CH. L. JACOB'S FUNERAL. JOSEPH'S SUBSEQUENT LIFE AND
DEATH.
ELOHISTIC.
THE Bishop of Natal gives all this chapter to the Jehovist,
with the exception of v. 13, which, containing the oft-repeated
description of the cave of Machpelah, and its purchase from
Ephron, is as usual ascribed to the Elohist. We have already
noticed the improbability of this being so frequently repeated
in such close proximity in the Elohistic narrative as separated
from the rest. Our present concern, however, is with the more
minute subdivision of other critics. The final address of Jacob
to his sons having been set out at length, the Jehovist is made,
like the junior Elohist, to pass over the death of Jacob without
any
direct mention of it; but in 1. 15 he tells us that Joseph's
brethren saw that their father was dead, and expressed their
apprehensions that Joseph would requite the evil they had done
him. There being but one direct statement of Jacob's death,
namely in xlix. 33, and that being assigned to the Elohist, the
far more copious narrative assigned to the Jehovist is thus left
with only an indirect mention of this important event. The
account of the funeral in ch. 1. precedes even that mention of
Jacob's death, and cannot therefore be attributed to the Jehovist.
It would be equally unfit to give it to the junior Elohist, who
has no mention of the death at all; and it would be entirely
576
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
out of place, with its long and minute particularity, in the very
brief narrative ascribed to the original Elohist. The two con-
cluding verses, 12, 13, with which this account of the funeral
winds up, recapitulating that his sons did as he commanded
them, and buried him in the cave of the field of Machpelah, is
as much as could, with any regard to proportion, be given to the
Elohist. There is nothing for it, therefore, but to make the
Redactor the author of this account of the funeral. If the
Jehovist's narrative would have admitted it, it would doubtless
have been given to him, as it contains a reference in v. 5 to the
oath which Jacob exacted of Joseph that he would bury him
with his fathers, as related in xlviii. 29-31, in a passage ascribed
to the Jehovist. This reference, and the fitness of this account
of the funeral as a part of the present history, besides the
improbability that a mere compiler would have introduced so
lengthened a passage without necessity, tend strongly to prove
the original unity of the narrative as it now exists.
The
1 The funeral halted at "the threshing floor of Atad, which is beyond Jordan."
The question has been raised, on which side of Jordan it was? If on the eastern side,
then the writer, it would be thought, must have been in the land of Canaan, and not
himself at the eastern side. Jerome says it was between the river and Jericho. The
word, however, is ambiguous, and is used to denote a place on the same side
as the writer, as well as on the other side, as in 1 Kings iv. 24. A more important
question is, what took them near the river at all? It cannot be believed that it was
intended by the writer to imply that a funeral cortege, setting out from Goshen, with
a large body of people, should have taken the enormous and circuitous route which
would have brought them to the cast of Jordan, as when the Israelites entered the
land of Canaan. The direct route through Beersheba would also have brought them
to Mamre, without going to the river. The compiler was not likely to have made
such a mistake any more than any of the supposed carlier writers. Perhaps this is to
be accounted for by the fact that the funeral was conducted with all the solemnities.
customary in the more important Egyptian funerals. The carrying of the body
across a lake or river was a principal feature in the ceremonial, and in order to
omit no important rite they may have gone to the Jordan. Hengstenberg thinks
that the expression, "beyond Jordan," had obtained a general prevalence from its
use in the land of Canaan, and that it would be employed even by a person writing
or speaking on the eastern as well as the western side. This is quite possible, but his
way of accounting for the circuitous route which he supposes the funeral cortege to
have taken in order to arrive at the eastern side of the river, namely that it was
on account of the military escort that the way of the wilderness was chosen, and that
for the same reason the Egyptains did not enter the land of Canaan, only the peaceful
part of the procession, Jacob's sons and their attendants, having gone across the river
and proceeded to Hebron, is quite unwarranted by anything in the history. The
chariots and horsemen mentioned in v. 9 were not necessarily military in any warlike
sense, nor is it at all implied that, after the seven days mourning at the threshing
floor of Atad, the Egyptians did not go over the river with the Israelites to the field
of Ephron.
CH. L.
577
Jehovist's story-which, after overleaping the funeral, with
which v. 14 is of course connected, mentioned the fears enter-
tained by Joseph's brethren after their father's death-extends
to the end of v. 21; and in the latter part of 22 and 23 tells the
age to which Joseph's life extended, and how he saw Ephraim's
children of the third generation, while the children of Machir,
the son of Manasseh, were also brought up on his knees. There
only remains the concluding statement, that Joseph told his
brethren he was dying, and that God would visit them and bring
them back to the promised land, that he exacted an oath of
them that they would carry up his bones with them, and that
he died an hundred and ten years old, was embalmed, and put in
a coffin in Egypt. These concluding verses, 24-26, are also
given to the Redactor. If the embalming of Jacob was not
mentioned by any of the original writers, it might be thought
improbable that any of them should record that Joseph was
embalmed, and accordingly the last verse goes to the Redactor,
with the earlier part of the chapter. Nothing in these verses
is, however, out of place as an integral part of the history as it
now exists. On the other hand, after the book has been re-
solved into its supposed elements, and each writer has had his
own share assigned to himself, there still remains a considerable
amount of matter, which there is no way to dispose of, except
by making the compiler, in addition to his proper work as such,
assume also the office of an original narrator. But if he was
disposed to write thus on his own account, it is not likely that
he would have taken the trouble to interweave short sentences,
and even separate phrases from several not very consistent
authors, into a connected whole, instead of taking one as his
basis, and incorporating the supplementary matter from time to
time in its proper place in his own words.1
1 The reader may see in the Table of Contents the sections and subdivisions into
which the book is resolved in this work, set out in a tabular form, so as to have a
connected view of the whole.
37
578
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
*** Distinguishing peculiarities of the Elohist and Jehovist.
MANY of the peculiarities of diction, relied on as distinctive
of the supposed authors of the book of Genesis, have been con-
sidered in the course of the preceding examination. In the last
part of his work the Bishop of Natal has collected together all
these peculiarities, and the summary view which he has given
of them, with all the references and the numbers of instances in
which each occurs, no doubt makes a very imposing array, such
as on a hurried glance, which is all that the general reader
would perhaps think of giving to these lists of verbal peculi-
arities, would seem to go far in support of the views of the
Bishop and the other critics of the same school.
A careful examination, however, of those lists of the more
salient points which the Bishop presents in chapters iii. iv. of
that volume will tend greatly to moderate the effect which this
formidable array is apt at first sight to produce. Many of
the points relied on vanish entirely as characteristic marks, and
many which appear very numerous in the gross reckoning,
when reduced to their net amount, are too few to sustain the
weight laid upon them. In order to do justice to this part of the
subject, it will be necessary first to enter into a detailed examin-
ation of the examples exhibiting the more salient points of the
supposed Elohist's style and manner, and then to turn our atten-
tion to the Jehovistic peculiarities. The proceeding will be dry
and tedious, but it is unavoidable.
In making this examination we shall have occasion frequently
to refer to the two following propositions, which are of great
moment in forming a just estimate of the value of the instances
of characteristic style adduced. These propositions are so self-
evident that it will suffice to state them. They will be cited as
we proceed by the letters A and B.
1
A. Instances of any usage, which, having been once adopted
in a particular place, continue as a matter of course to be used
PECULIARITIES OF THE ELOHIST.
579
several times in the same connexion, are only equivalent to
a single instance. This may be exemplified by the expression,
"walked with God," in vi. 22 and repeated in v. 24.
B. Instances of usage, which are plainly copied or adopted
from an earlier occurrence of the same, add no weight to the
earlier instance as indications of a distinctive character, and
must be discharged from consideration altogether.
N.B. The formula to which an asterisk is prefixed, do not
occur at all in the non-Elohistic parts here denoted by X. The
Elohistic parts are denoted by E.
(
(1.) After his (their) kind,' i. 11, 12, 12, 21, 21, 24, 24, 24, 25, 25, 25; vi. 20›
20, 20; vii. 14, 14, 14, 14."
But the instances from i. are only = 1 by A; those from vi. and
vii. are taken from i., and therefore = 0 by B. All are there-
fore only equivalent to one instance instead of seventeen.
“* (11.) ', 'swarm,', 'swarming things,'¹ i. 20, 20, 21; vii. 21, 21; viii.
17; ix. 7."
=
But the instances in i. are only 1 by A, those in vii. and
viii. are taken from i. .. = 0 by B, and that in ix. 7 = 1. All
therefore are only equal to two instances instead of seven.
“* (111.) 7771 177, 'fructify and multiply,' i. 22, 28; viii. 17; ix. 1, 7; xvii.
(2+6), 20; xxviii. 3; xxxv. 11; xlvii. 27; xlviii. 4.” 2
=
=
But the instances in i. are only 1 by A, those in viii. and ix.
being taken from i. = 0 by B, xvii. (2 + 6), 20 only 1 by A,
xxxv. 11 and xlviii. 4 are carried on from xvii. and ..
0 by
B, and xlvii. 271. All therefore make but three independent
instances instead of eleven.
"(IV.) These are the generations of the heaven and earth,' ii. 4,” etc.
It has been shown that these clauses are no indications of
style, but the formal titles of the principal sections. The first,
ii. 4, has been shown to belong to the Jehovistic passage follow-
1 Thus the Bishop translates; but we have seen, p. 80, that this is incorrect.
2 The comparison with "be mighty and multiply "in vii. 18, used of the waters of
the deluge, is wholly irrelevant, though recommended by the Bishop.
580
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
ing it. The Bishop admits x. 1 to be Jehovistic, and xxxvii.
2 is prefixed to a Jehovistic section by the Bishop's admission;
to call it Elohistic is quite an arbitrary assumption.
“* (v.) Thin, ‘beget,' v. 3, 4, etc., twenty-eight times; vi. 10; xi. 10, 11, etc.
twenty-nine times; xvii. 20; xxv. 19; xlviii. 6."
=
But the instances from v. are only 1 by A, and those from
xi. also only
1 by A,and four other references 1 each. All
are therefore only equivalent to six instead of sixty-one in-
stances.
"X. has the Hophal form of this verb once, xl. 20; but in the formula where E
in, X employs always, iv. 18, 18, 18; vi. 4; x. 8, 13, 15, 24, 24, 26;
xxш. 23; xxv. 3, which E never uses in the sense beget.'"
<
הוֹלִיד nas
But the instances in iv. and x. are only 1 each by A, and
these with the other three will make only five in all, instead of
twelve instances.¹
=
“* (VI.) ♬ ‘hundred,' v. 3, 6, 18, 25, 28; vii. 24; viii. 3; xi. 10, 25; xxi. 5;
XIV. 7, 17; xxxv. 28; xlvii. 9, 28.
But here the instances in v. are only 1 by A, those in vii.
and viii., the latter following the former, only=1 by B, and those
in xi. = 1 by A. The number of instances is thus reduced from
fifteen to ten.
"I uses always, vi. 3; xxvi. 12; xxxiii. 19; 1. 22, 26, which E. has also
ND
xvii. 17, xxiii. 1."
In the case of vi. 3, the writer, having accidentally placed
the hundred before the lesser number twenty, could not have
used the stat. constr., meath. The same remark applies to 1. 22,
26, so that we have only two instances of the alleged Jehovistic
usage that can be relied on. Had there been occasion of men-
tioning this number more frequently, it is possible that the
Jehovistic passages might also have presented the word in the
stat. constr. The cases in which the number is mentioned in
the entire of the non-Elohistic part, seven-ninths of the whole
book, are too scanty to found any induction on them.
G
1 It has already been shown that these two forms of the verb are not in all cases
interchangeable.
PECULIARITIES OF THE ELOHIST.
581
=
** (VII.) 'in (after) his (their) generations (7), vi. 9; xvii. 7, 9, 12."
The instances in xvii. are only 1 by B, and the two
examples which we thus have left are too few to establish a
distinguishing characteristic. Moreover the word is used in
quite different senses in the two chapters. In ch. vi. 9,
"Noah was perfect in his generations," the word denotes the
generations with which he was contemporary, amongst all
which wicked successions through so long a life he maintained
his uprightness. This use is paralleled presently after in the
Jehovistic vii. 1, "I have seen thee righteous in this generation,"
—the only one of this existing generation. And thus this instance
rather tends to identify than to differentiate these writings in
regard to their origin. In ch. xvii. the word is used of the
successive generations of Abraham's descendants. God's cove-
nant was to be not only with himself, but with his seed after
him in their successive generations, and every one in these suc-
cessive generations must be circumcised. The word "after"
introduced by the Bishop as a substitute for "in" would make
nonsense of the expression in these places.
“* (VIII.) ‘all flesh' vi. 12, 13, 17, 19; vii. 15, 16, 21; viii. 17; ix. 11, 15,
15, 16, 17."
All these thirteen instances following in succession from the
first are by B only equal to one.
(C
(Ix.) 'N, 'I,' vi. 17; ix. 9, 12; xvii. 1; xxxv. 11; xlviii. 7; xlix. 29.
Exod. vi. 2, 5, 7, in preference to ','I,' which E uses only once, xxiii. 4."
"X uses the latter fifty-four, and the former thirty times."
But from all these latter we must first reject the instances
which are not assigned to the Jehovist proper. These are, for
anochi, xv. 1, 2, 14; xx. 6, 6; and for ani, xli. 9, 11, 15, 44.
Then as regards anochi, xvi. 5, 8 = 1 by A; so also xxi. 24,
26; xxiv. 3, 13, 24, 27, 31, 34, 37, 42, 43, are, each set, = 1 by
A; xxv. 30, 32; xxvi. 24, 24; xxvii. 11, 19, Jacob saying
anochi while the other speakers say ani; xxviii. 15, 16, 20;
xxx. 1, 2, 3; xxxi. 5, 13, 38, 39, Jacob's words, Laban using
1 Thus pointed by the Bishop, and written anochi, apparently all through, as
noticed by Dr. Kay, Cris. Hupf. p. 36.
582
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
ani; xxxviii. 17, 25; xlvi. 3, 4, 4; and l. 21, 24, are by A
only = 1 each set, making altogether but 12; while the
remainder are but 13, thus in all giving twenty-five instances
instead of fifty-four.
Then for ani we have xxvii. 8, 24, 32, 34, 38; xxxi. 44, 52;
xxxiv. 30, 30; xxxvii. 30, 30; xlii. 18, 37; xlv. 3, 4=1
each by A; and these are together six, the remainder being
ten, in all fifteen. In ch. xviii. Jehovah uses ani, and
Abraham anochi; in xxvii. Jacob uses anochi, and other
speakers ani; and in xxxi. Jacob also uses anochi while Laban
says ani. If this was designed on dramatic grounds, we should
deduct these three instances from each, making the total for
comparison to be twenty-two instances of anochi and twelve of
ani. The proportions in either case are not materially altered
from those which the Bishop arrives at, but the weight of the
entire is considerably reduced as forming a distinguishing
characteristic of the Jehovistic writer. The Elohistic instances
of ani are equivalent to seven, and there is an instance of anochi.
If we add these to the numbers ascertained above, and for the
rejected passages, xv. 1, 2, 14, and xx. 6, 6, one each of anochi;
and for xli. 9, 11, 15 one, and v. 44 one, of ani, we shall then get
for the entire book twenty-eight of anochi, and twenty-four of ani
or thereabout. Hence we see that, on the supposition of a single
author, he was quite indifferent as to the use of either form, and
the seeming disproportion may be entirely due to an unnatural
partition of a single work.
"* (x.) V1, 'expire,' vi. 17; vii. 21; xxv. 8, 17; xxxv. 29; xlix. 33.”
In vi. 17 this word, signifying "to breathe out," seems to
have been suggested by the mention of every creature in which
was the breath of life. In vii. 21 it follows vi. 17, and adds
nothing as an example. In the other four instances it is used
in reference to the death of Abraham, and his sons, Ishmael,
Isaac, and of Jacob. Thus the mention of the death of these four
is made more formal and deferential by the addition of this
PECULIARITIES OF THE ELOHIST.
583
word to some other word denoting their decease.
therefore in all cases due to a special reason for its use.
It seems
“* (XI.) 'with (N) thee,' 'with them,' etc., used as a kind of expletive, vi. 18,
19; vii. 7, 13, 23; viii. 1, 16, 17, 17, 18; ix. 8, 10, 10; xi. 31; xvii. 27; xxi. 2;
xxviii. 4; xlvi. 6, 7, 7.”
In vi. 18 we have first, "with thee will I establish my cove-
nant," and the like phrase in ix. 8. Neither of these use the
expression as an expletive, but as a needful part of the sentence.
In the second instance of its occurrence in vi. 18 it can scarcely
be called an expletive, as the verb is in the second person
singular agreeing with "thou," and the expression “with thee”
supplies the place of the verb to the subsequent nouns. At any
rate this, with the other instances in the history of the deluge,
is due to the fulness and iteration with which every particular
is gone over and over again, and every phrase repeated, as one
of the special characteristics of that particular piece. In xi. 31,
"they went with them," the expression is of quite a different.
kind, and is equivalent to our expression, "they went with
themselves." The phrase is indeed expletive, but does not
correspond to the preceding uses, or to any of the following.
In xvii. 27 it is not expletive, but completes the statement the
writer wanted to make; all the men of Abraham's house were
not only circumcised, but were circumcised simultaneously with
himself. In xxi. 2 it supplies a needful part of the intended
meaning-Sarah bare Abraham a son at the time of which God
had spoken to, or with him. Of course it might have been
omitted, but its absence would have been elliptical, rather than
its presence is expletive. In xxviii. 4 it is less necessary, as
also in xlvi. 6, 7, 7, especially in e. 7. But, on the whole, as an
expletive the expression is not used so decidedly, or so frequently,
as to be a token of distinct authorship.
(XII.) 'thou and thy sons and thy wife and thy sons' wives with thee,' vi. 18."
Similar enumerations are in vii. 7, viii. 18, and with slight
variation, vii. 13, and viii. 16. All these follow on vi. 18 by
584
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
the iteration usual in this narrative. They characterise that
piece in particular, but do not occur in other parts sufficiently
to differentiate the writer, the only other example being at the
end of the book in xlvi. 6, 7, where we have a similar enume-
ration of Jacob's family. Of course no one doubts that these all
proceeded from the same author.
(XIII.) 'give a covenant,' ix. 12; xvii. 2, 7, 19; 'establish a covenant,' vi.
18; ix. 9, 11, 17; xvii. 21; Ex. vi. 4."
"X has always 'cut a covenant,' xv. 18; xxi. 27, 32; xxvi. 28; xxxi. 44, which
E never uses."
The difference of meaning and usage of these phrases has
already been sufficiently discussed, p. 407-9 and 437.
(XIV.) 'my (his) covenant,' vi. 18; ix. 9, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 17; xvii. 2, 4,
7, 9, 10, 13, 14, 19, 21; Ex. vi. 4, 5."
All the instances in ix. are only 1 by A. They ought
perhaps to be set down as of no weight at all, as they are plainly
adopted from vi. 18. The instances in xvii. are also only = 1,
and Ex. vi. 4, 5 refers plainly to xvii. and follows it. Two or
three instances are the most; and but for the repetition, which
gives a deceptive appearance of frequency, this expression would
never have been thought of as a token of separate authorship.
"* (xv.) 'in the bone of this day' on the self-same day, vii. 13; xvii. 23,
26."
=
The two instances in xvii. are only 1 by A, and the latter,
as has been shown, belonging to the prefatory matter prefixed
to xviii., is in a Jehovistic connexion.
*(xvI.) and Elohim remembered' Noah, viii. 1, Abraham, xix. 29, Rachel,
XXX. 22,"
Of these, that in xix. 29 has no reason to be given to the
Elohist, except on the ground of a repetition which has been
explained already. The other two instances are but a slight
token of individuality. The remembrance of God's cove-
nant referred to in ix. 15, 16 is too different in its import
PECULIARITIES OF THE ELOHIST.
585
to be classed with the former. That denotes a personal object
of regard, the other respect to one's own engagement.
"* (XVII.) 1.
2.
3.
With you and your seed after you,' ix. 9.
Between thee and thy seed after thee,' xvii. 7.
To thee and to thy seed after thee,' xvii. 7, 8; xxxv. 12.
Thou and thy seed after thee,' xvii. 9.
((
4.
5. Between you and thy seed after thee,' xvii. 10.
6.
With him and his seed after him,' xvii. 19.
7. 'To thee and to thy seed with thee,' xxviii. 4.
8.
Jacob and all his seed with him,' xlvi. 6."
1
"X has 'to thy seed' xii. 7; xv. 18; xxiv. 7; xxvi. 4; 'to thee and to thy seed
for ever,' xiii. 15; 'to thee and to thy seed,' xxvi. 3; xxviii. 13; never to thy seed
after thee,' or 'thy seed with thee.'
=
But now, of the expressions ascribed above to the Elohist, those
numbered 2-6 are all in xvii. and only 1 by A. That num-
bered 3, as repeated in xxxv. 12, and 7 in xxviii. 4, being adopted
from ch. xvii. go for nothing by B. There are therefore
altogether but three instances, in ix. 9, in xvii. and in xlvi. 6,
as independent examples, the last being really different from
the others.
(XVIII.) 'everlasting generations,' ix. 12; 'everlasting covenant,' ix. 16;
xvii. 7, 13, 19; 'everlasting possession,' xvii. 8; xlviii. 4."
"X has everlasting Elohim,' xxi. 33, 'everlasting mountains,' xlix. 26."
The three instances of "everlasting covenant" in xvii. are
only = 1 by A, those of "everlasting possession" in xvii. 8,
and xlviii. 4, are only equal 1 by B, the latter being derived
from the former. Hence we have four examples of the word
"everlasting," used in the Elohistic parts with three different
substantives as the occasion offered. No one will think this a
token of separate authorship.
"(XIX.), 'soul' used for 'person,' xii. 5; xvii. 14; xxxvi. 6; xlvi. 15, 18,
22, 25, 26, 26, 27."
"X has this once, xiv. 21."
The first of the above instances is a case per se, and should
be excluded from this enumeration. The word soul is in that
place used in the singular as a collective term for human beings,
in contrast with which stands for inanimate and brute
586
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
possessions. Its use there is exactly the same as in the Jehovistic
xiv. 21 above referred to. There, too, the collective "soul"
stands in contrast to the same word rechush for other property:
"give me the soul, and take the goods to thyself." In xvii. 14,
"soul" instead of "man" seems to be used with reference to the
loss of life threatened to the uncircumcised person, "the un-
circumcised man-child-that soul shall be cut off." In xxxvi.
6, "souls" is used in the plural as distinguished from cattle
and other possessions, but may pass as an instance of the use it
is adduced to exemplify, as may also the instances in xlvi.,
which are, however, only 1, as in a recurring form, by A. It
is thus that these proofs of a peculiar style for the most part
melt away when a little sunshine is let in on them.
=
"* (xx.) And Abram took,' etc., xii. 5.
'And he led off,' etc., xxxi. 18.
'And Esau took,' etc., xxxvi. 6.
'And they took,' etc., xlvi. 6."
The Bishop compares these similar descriptions of the re-
moval of their substance by Abram, Jacob, Esau, and Jacob
and his sons. Their similarity is only in the fulness with which
various particulars are enumerated, of which the Jehovistic
parts also afford examples, and in the circumstance that they
all refer to the same kind of transaction, the design being in all
cases to express a complete removal of the entire substance.
The differences, however, are so considerable, that had it suited
the theory to give them to different writers, a good case of dif-
ferent phraseology might be made. The passages are subjoined,
not in the words of the Bishop's translation, but so as to show
exactly the phrases that are the same, and those that are different.
"And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother's son,
and all the getting which they had gotten, and the soul which
they had made in Haran." xii. 5.
"And he led off all his gain, and all his getting which he had
gotten, the gain of his gaining which he had gotten in Padan-
Aram." xxxi. 18.
PECULIARITIES OF THE ELOHIST.
587
"And Esau took his wives, and his sons, and his daughters,
and all the souls of his house, and his gain, and all his cattle,
and all his gaining which he had gotten in the land of Canaan.”
xxxvi. 6.
"And they took their gain and their getting, which they had
gotten in the land of Canaan." xlvi. 6.
** (XXI.) And the land did not bear them to dwell together; for their gain was
much, and they were not able to dwell together.' xiii. 6.
'For their gain was much above their dwelling together; and the land of their
sojournings was not able to bear them because of their cattle.' xxxvi. 7.”
A like circumstance is reported naturally with some simi-
larity of statement, but at the same time with very considerable
difference of expression. The resemblance would have been
greater, if the Bishop had added to the former the mention of
the strife between the herdmen of Abram's and of Lot's cattle,
the word rendered cattle being the same in both. But this
addition in xiii. is given to the Jehovist.
"* (XXII.) Appearance of God as 'El Shaddai to the Patriarchs,' xvii. 1; ILIV.
11; xlviii. 3; Ex. vi. 3."
The three last of these all follow from the first, which is said
to have been an appearance of Jehovah, this name being
therefore forcibly extruded from the text. In Ex. vi. 3 it is
also Jehovah who says that he, Jehovah, had appeared to the
Patriarchs" in El Shaddai."
"* (XXIII.) TND TN, 'exceedingly,' xvii. 2, 6, 20.”
"X has TND TN, vii. 19, xxx. 43.”
The examples in xvii. are only = 1 by A, and may be
matched by the two from the remaining parts of the book. The
use of the preposition prefixed in the single instance can scarcely
be regarded as differentiating the authorship.
"* (XXIV.) 'Thou shalt be a father of a multitude of nations,' xvii. 4.
A father of a multitude of nations will I give thee,' xvii. 5.
'I will give thee for nations,' xvii. 6.
'I will give him (Ishmael) for a great nation,' xvii. 20.
¿
That thou mayest be for a company of peoples,' xxviii. 3.
A nation and a company of nations shall be out of thee,' xxxv. 11.
'I will give thee for a company of peoples,' xlviii. 4."
"N.B.-E speaks of many nations being formed from the descendants of Abraham,
588
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
and uses the formula 'give thee (him)' for a nation or nations, whereas X has the
following formulæ, but never uses the expression 'give' in this connexion, nor the
phrase 'company (multitude) of nations (peoples)' :—
'I will make thee a great nation,' xii. 2.
'He shall surely be for a great and mighty nation,' xviii. 18.
'I will place him (Ishmael) for a nation,' xxi. 13.
'For a great nation will I place him,' xxi. 18.
'Two nations are in thy womb, and two folks shall be separated from thee,'
XIV. 23.
For a great nation will I place thee,' xlvi. 3.
'His (Ephraim's) seed shall be the fulness of nations,' xlviii. 19.”
The Elohistic phrases are all traceable to ch. xvii., and spring
from that one occasion being repeated or imitated in the sub-
sequent places, as already noted several times. Of the non-Elo-
histic expressions, xxi. 18 is not given to the Jehovist at all;
xxv. 23, in reference to the sons of Rebekah, could not speak of
a multitude or company of nations, as only two were intended;
and of Ephraim it was not intended to indicate the descent from
him of several nations, or of even one as a distinct or separate
nation, but only that his, seed should be numerous enough to
make nations.
"* (xxv.) 'Kings shall go forth out of thee,' xvii. 6.
'Kings of people shall be out of her,' xvii. 16.
Kings shall go forth out of thy loins,' xxxv. 11.
'The souls that went forth out of Jacob's thigh,' xlvi. 26."
The three first of these, as already often said of the references
to ch. xvii., or to places derived from it, are all resolvable into
one. The last reference seems only added as a make-weight,
because it has the expression, "went forth," the rest being all
different.
*(XXVI.) I will give thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land of thy sojourn-
ings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession,' xvii. 8."
In addition to this the Bishop quotes similar sentences from
xxviii. 4, xxxv. 12, and Ex. vi. 4. But as these are all simply
derived from the first, they add nothing to the Bishop's argu-
ment.
!
(
"* (XXVII.) 'land of thy (their, his father's) sojournings,' xvii. 8; xxviii.
4; xxxvi. 7; xxxvii. 1; Ex. vi. 4. Comp. days of the years of my sojournings,'
xlvii. 9; days of their sojournings,' xlvii. 9."
<
The second of the above references is directly taken from the
PECULIARITIES OF THE ELOHIST.
589
first, and so is the last, Ex. vi. 4. No doubt the Patriarchs are
represented as constantly keeping this phrase in mind, as did
the author also.
“* (XXVIII.) 778, 'possession,' xvii. 8; xxiii. 4, 9, 20; xxxvi. 43; xlvii. 11;
xlviii. 4; xlix. 30; 1. 13."
Of these references, xlviii. 4 follows xvii. 8, and .. = 0 by B ;
xlix. 30 and 1. 13, follow ch. xxiii., being simply repeated from
it, and .. . = 0 by B; and the three instances in xxiii., being
merely instances of the repetitions which, with legal precision,
are made in that piece, are only = 1 by A.
1 by A. Hence the entire
number is reduced to four. No doubt also the two instances in
xxxvi. 43, and xlvii. 11, are due to a reference in the writer's
mind to the promise in ch. xvii. In the former, by the separation
of the first verse of the next chapter, the contrast is not noticed.
Esau had possessions while yet Jacob lived in the land of his
sojournings, notwithstanding the promise that it should be for
a possession. And in xlvii. 11 he obtains a possession in
Egypt, instead of as yet inheriting the promised possession
in Canaan.
((
(XXIX.) The years of the life of Sarah,' xxiii. 1; 'Ishmael,' xxv. 17;'
Comp. the days of the years of the life of Abraham,' xxv. 7.
The days of Isaac,' xxxv. 28.
The days of the years of thy (my) life,' xlvii. 9.
'The days of the years of my sojournings,' xlvii. 9.
'The days of the years of my father's life,' xlvii. 9.
(
The days of Jacob, of the years of his life,' xlvii. 28."
There is here, however, great variation, notwithstanding the
general resemblance. The phrases from xlvii. 9 are in fact
only equivalent to one instance. That respecting Abraham
agrees as regards the expression of time with these. But
these with the others, and the others amongst themselves,
vary still more.
"X has all the days of the life,' iii. 14, 17."
But this agrees as much with some of the others, as they do
amongst themselves.
The "of" has no business here; the clauses are in apposition. Its absence
diminishes the similarity of this to the preceding reference.
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
590
"* (xxx.) E describes frequently, with almost legal precision, the cave of Mach-
pelah, which is mentioned nowhere else in the Bible, xxiii. 17, 18, 19, 20; xxv. 9,
10; xlix. 29, 30, 32; 1. 13."
There is no doubt that this cave and field were kept con-
tinually in view, as the only property in land acquired by
Abraham in Canaan, but cherished as a pledge of its future
possession. The chapter in which this purchase is recorded is
very peculiar, and has, like many other passages in the book, a
style of its own, which differs as much from that of the Elohis-
tic, as of the Jehovistic parts of the book. Its ascription to the
Elohist, so called, is quite arbitrary and to suit the ends of the
theory.
"* (XXXI.) E mentions expressly the burial and burial place of Sarah, xxiii. 9;
of Abraham, xxv. 9; of Isaac, xxxv. 29; of Rachel, xxxv. 19; xlviii. 7; of Abraham
and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, and Leah, xlix. 31; of Jacob, xlix. 29; 1. 13."
But the verse containing Rachel's death and burial in xxxv.
is picked out of an admitted Jehovistic context, merely that the
Elohist should tell this fact; the others, as Elohistic tokens,
depend on the Elohistic origin of xxiii. and the non-Jehovistic
origin of xvii., both which are arbitary determinations, the
first without the usual tokens that are alleged for the distinct
Elohistic style, and the second by the violent rejection of
Jehovah from the text.
"* (XXXII.) ' and Abraham (Ishmael, Isaac) expired and died, and was gathered
unto his people,' xxv. 8, 17; xxxv. 29; Comp. 'I shall be gathered unto my people,'
xlix. 29; and he expired and was gathered unto his people,' xlix. 33; also he
shall be cut off from his people,' xvii. 14."
This last expression is quite different in its conception from
that of being gathered to one's people. In the one the people
are those that have died before, in the latter they are those that
survive. If the expressions could have any effect, it would be
to indicate a different, instead of the same, habit of mind.
'
“* (XXXIII.) 'and his sons, Isaac and Ishmael, buried him,' xxv. 9; and his
sons, Esau and Jacob, buried him,' xxxv. 29; and his sons. . buried him,' 1. 13."
•
These sentences are the complements of those just mentioned,
PECULIARITIES OF THE ELOHIST.
591
and should not be severed from them as distinct indications
of authorship.
"(XXXIV.) E uses
, 'with,' fifty-one times, viz., v. 22, 24; vi. 9, 13, 18, 18,
19; vii. 7, 13, 23; viii. 1, 16, 17, 17, 18; ix. 8, 9, 9, 10, 10, 10, 11, 12; xi. 31;
xvii. 3, 4, 19, 21, 22, 23, 27, 27; xxi. 2; xxiii. 8, 8, 20; xxv. 10; xxviii. 4; xxxv,
13, 14, 15; xxxvii. 2, 2, 2; xlvi. 6, 7, 7; xlix. 30, 32; 1. 13, 13; and Dy, 'with,'
only twice, xxiii. 4, 4:
"X uses 'eth' seventy-nine times, and 'him' ninety-three times."
Of these examples the two in v. are only 1 by A, that in
vi. 13, is probably mistaken; the particle eth sustains any
relation according to circumstances, and in this case should
perhaps be rendered from,-"from the earth," like "from
Jehovah" in iv. 1. The succeeding instances in vi.-ix. are
highly characteristic of the history of Noah, and remarkably
distinguish that piece, as one of the special features of its
composition. The same may be said of xvii, though the instance
in r. 3 and 23 should probably be translated, as by the LXX.,
avτ@, "to him," not "with him;"-Elohim spake to him; and
the same may be said of the three instances of the same phrase in
xxxv. 13, 14, 15, though the LXX. have μer' avтoû there; and of
xxi. 2, where they have aur@; and in xxiii. 8, where they have
πρòs avτoùs. In the same verse, "if it be," should
also be rendered "to your mind," the LXX. here too having a
simple dative. The compound preposition meeth in r. 20, and
copied from that in xxv. 10, in xlix. 30, 32, and 1. 13, is a
different form, and should not be classed here. It is the full
expression of the relation elliptically expressed in iv. 1; the
particle eth sustains the relation expressed by the preposition
whatever it may be, and this may be omitted when the sense is
clear. The expression rendered "with the field" in the two
last references is probably a simple apposition, eth being only
the sign of the accusative, and is so rendered by the LXX.
Thus the number of clear and independent instances of the use
of this particle in the sense of with is reduced nearly one half,
and as a striking characteristic it is confined to the history of
Noah, and to the seventeenth chapter. It is an illustration in
592
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
Elohistic parts of what we shall presently see is a characteristic
of the Jehovistic parts also. All through the book the writer from
time to time gets, as it were, fits of a particular phraseology,
which last for a while and then disappear, the remaining parts
not being particularly distinguished by the same manner of
speaking. A remarkable instance of this as regards a Jehovistic
passage has already come under our notice in the use of the pro-
noun anochi, I, namely in ch. xxiv., where this form is used
nine times, and ani only once, while in xxvii. ani is used five
times, and anochi twice. As regards the use of the particle eth
for with, it is plain that the number of times it is so used by E, with
the manner of its distribution, estimated as we have shown it
should be, does not by any means justify the confident tone with
which the Bishop argues from its employment in the Elohistic
parts as compared with the non-Elohistic.
In proceeding next to examine the characteristics of the
non-Elohistic parts of the book, which the Bishop has collected, it
will be necessary to add to the former propositions A and B, a
third, C, which is equally self-evident, and without regard to
which no fair comparison can be made.
C. In judging the characteristics that distinguish the Elohist
and the Jehovist as two different writers, all instances should be
excluded from the latter, which by the Bishop's own judgment
do not belong to the Jehovist proper at all. The usages of other
writers should not be added to swell the alleged peculiarities
which distinguish the Jehovist from the Elohist.
N.B.-The asterisk will here distinguish usages which do not
occur at all in the Elohistic parts. The following are the forms
occurring twenty times at least.
"* (I.), 'serve,' ii. 5, 15; iii. 23; iv. 2, 12; xv. 13, 14, xxv. 23; xxvii.
29, 40; xxix. 15, 18, 20, 25, 27, 30; xxx. 26, 26, 29; xxxi. 6, 41; xlix. 15,-
twenty-two times."
But first, the examples in ii., iii., and iv. constitute an usage
PECULIARITIES OF THE JEHOVIST.
593
per se, "to serve," for "to till," the ground being a figurative
use quite different from the literal sense the word has in the
other places referred to. These should therefore perhaps be put
out of consideration. Next, ch. xv. is not given to the Jehovist
proper, but to the Deuteronomist, and must be excluded by C.
All the instances in xxix.-xxxi. necessarily follow from the nature
of the story, and depend on the first occurrence of the word, from
which its use in the sequel follows as a matter of course. These
are therefore only = 1 by A. The entire are therefore only
worth five, besides the figurative use in ii.-iv. Considering the
relative extent of the parts ascribed to the Jehovist, three times
times as great as those assigned to the Elohist, the use of the
word has no value as a differentiating token.
"ay, 'servant' or 'slave,' ix. 25, 26, 27; xii. 16; xiv. 15: xviii. 3, 5; xix. 2,
19; xx. 8, 14; xxi. 25; xxiv. 15 times; xxvi. 15, 19, 24, 25, 32; xxvii. 37; XXX
43; xxxii. 4, 5, 10, 16, 16, 18, 20; xxxiii. 5, 14: xxxix. 17, 19; xl. 20, 20; xli. 10,
12, 37, 38; xlii. 10, 11, 13; xliii. 18, 28; xliv. 19 times; xlv. 16; xlvi. 34; xlvii.
3, 4, 4, 19, 25; 1. 2, 7, 17, 18—eighty-six times.”
First, however, xiv. is not given to the Jehovist proper, nor
are xx., xxi., xl., xli., xlv. in the parts cited. Thus eleven
instances are struck off by C. The examples from ix. are
only 1 by A, as also xviii. 3, 5= 1 by A. Of the fifteen
instances in xxiv., thirteen, as merely mentioning Abraham's
servant, all follow from the first, and are only =
= 1 by A. Of
those in xxvi., three, "Isaac's servants,
"Isaac's servants," are only 1 by A. Of
those in xxxii., four, namely "thy servant," said of himself by
Jacob, and the like uses of the word in xxxiii. following these,
are 1 by A, xlii. 10, 11, 13 = 1 by A, and sixteen instances
of the like expression in xliv. only 1 by A. The three
instances in xlvii. 3, 4, and the two in 19, 25 are each set 1
by A. Thus fifty-three of the eighty-six instances of this word
are to be thrown out, leaving only thirty-three clear and inde-
pendent examples, many of which might be struck off for the same
reasons, but have been allowed to stand. Chapter xxiv. presents
in this case an example of one of the fits of a particular phrase or
expression already noticed. All through, the use of this word
38
594
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
entirely depends on the subject matter, except in the instances
where it occurs as a formula of politeness or humility, such as
"thy servant." These, as estimated by our rules, are about six.
And this is in fact the only use that could be considered charac-
teristic. But it is not of frequent occurrence through the book
generally, nor in any other Jehovistic part remarkable but in ch.
xliv., where it is repeated several times.
The example of the two instances now examined will show
how needless it is to cite all the references in regard to words of
common use. When they are employed as occasion requires in
their natural and literal acceptation, and are the proper, and we
might say the necessary, words to be adopted-when not
their presence, but their absence, and the use of a less common
and familiar expression would be remarkable-their employment
cannot be considered as in any way distinctive. Any writer
would more naturally express the idea of a servant, by the word
"servant," than in any other way. It is only such usages as
above noticed, "thy servant" as a phrase of civility, or "serve"
for "till the ground" in ii.-iv., that are worthy of note. It will
suffice therefore in regard to such words to notice the remarkable
usages only.
“* (11.) D', 'place,'—forty-seven times.”
Of these forty-seven instances of the word, the larger part are
the common and natural use in the sense of putting or setting
in a place, on anything, or in any direction. These are quite
irrelevant. The instances worthy of notice are xiii. 16; xxvii.
37; xxxii. 12; xlv. 7, 8, 9; xlvi. 3; xlvii. 26; xlviii. 20;
besides xxi. 13, not given to the Jehovist proper. In these
places the word is used in the figurative sense of “make” or
"appoint." But of these, xxxii. 12 follows xiii. 16, and is
.. = 0 by B, and xlv. 7, 8, 9 are only = 1 by A, while xxi. 13
is excluded by C. Hence we have only six independent instances
for the entire of the Jehovistic writings strictly speaking, pro-
portioned to but two as compared with the Elohistic parts,-too
small a number to constitute any decided distinction. There
PECULIARITIES OF THE. JEHOVIST.
595
are a couple of instances in which the word is used improperly
of setting a space between two persons, but still the idea is that
of literal place.
(C
(III.), he, she, it,' ii.¹ 11, 13, 14, 14, 19; iii. 6, 12, 15, 16, 20; iv. 4, 20, 21,
22, 26; vi. 3; vii. 2; ix. 18; x. 8, 9, 12, 21; xii. 14, 18, 19; xiii. 1; xiv. 12, 13,
15, 18; xv. 2, 4; xvi. 12; xviii. 1, 8, 10; xix. 20, 20, 30; xx. 2, 3, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 7,
12, 13, 16; xxi. 13, 17; xxii. 20, 24; xxiv. 7, 15, 44, 54, 62, 65; xxv. 21, 29:
xxvi. 7, 7, 9, 9; xxvii. 31, 33, 38; xxix. 9, 12, 12, 25; xxx. 33; xxxi. 16, 20, 21:
43, xxxii. 18, 21, 31; xxxiii. 3; xxxiv. 14, 19; xxxv. 6; xxxvi. 24; xxxvii. 2, 3,
27, 32; xxxviii. 12, 14, 16, 21, 25, 25; xxxix. 3, 6, 22, 23; xl. 10; xli. 11, 25, 26,
28; xlii. 6, 14, 27, 38; xliii. 12, 32; xliv. 5, 10, 14, 17, 20; xlv. 20, 26; xlvii. 6.
18; xlviii. 14, 19, 19; xlix. 13, 19, 20; 1. 14, 22,-
1. 14, 22,—a hundred and twenty-eight
times. E has it thrice, ix. 3; xvii. 12; xxiii. 15."
From this imposing list of references, we must first deduct
twenty-five instances occurring in passages not given to the
Jehovist proper, which should therefore by C be excluded from
consideration as between the Jehovist and Elohist. Only we
may observe in regard to these, that chapter xx., and part
of xxi., being given to the second Elohist, we have in the
former from v. 2 to 16 eleven instances, while in the latter, i
all 20 verses, this pronoun occurs but twice,-as strange a
disproportion as any, yet by one writer. We then observe
as to the distribution of this pronoun, that it is by fits,
large Jehovistic passages being wholly destitute of it as
much as the Elohistic, which latter be it remembered, in
the book as it now exists, are like the others distributed
indiscriminately amongst the passages which contain this pro-
noun. As regards these fits, we notice first the chapters
ii., iii., and iv., which altogether are equivalent only to one
example, but in each of which the use of the pronoun is
mainly concentrated in a few verses. Then we have a single
instance in the Jehovistic part of vi. and one in vii. 2, while
1 In regard to the form for the feminine pronoun, instead of N, Kennicott,
"State of the Printed Hebrew Text of the Old Testament," p. 343, remarks with
reference to Gen. iii. 12, 20, that the Samaritan text has ", she, in both places
here, as (perhaps) in every other, where this pronoun has been corrupted in the
Hebrew." He considers the feminine form to have been always used originally
for the feminine. This became corrupted by the transcribers, who elongated in some
cases the into 1; but he shows that the MSS. are not uniform in this corruption,
while the punctuation agrees with the regular form.
596
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
from thence through all the Jehovistic parts of the history of
the deluge, twenty-five verses, it does not ever occur until it
re-appears for once in ix. 18. Then we have sixteen verses
again assigned to the Jehovist without its occurrence, when we
come upon another short fit of it in x. 8-21. Then follow
thirty-three Jehovistic verses without it, succeeded by four
instances in xii. 14-xiii. 1, eight verses. We have then again
twenty-six Jehovistic verses without it, till we come to xvi. 12,
where it is found once. Between that and xviii. 10, twelve
Jehovistic verses, it exists three times, after which follow forty-
two Jehovistic verses without it, when it occurs again twice in
xix. 20, and once in 30. Then follow thirty-nine verses without
it, to xxii. 20, 24, after which we have it in xxiv. 7, 15, and a
fit towards the end of the chapter after twenty-eight verses
without it. Then after ten verses it re-appears twice in xxv.
21, 29, and after eleven verses again four times in xxvi. 7-9.
After these there is no instance through a space of fifty-three
Jehovistic verses, till we come to xxvii. 31-38, in which it occurs
three times. Then after twenty-nine verses it is again found four
times in xxix. 9-25, but fourteen Jehovistic verses. Then for
thirty verses it does not appear again, but is found in xxx. 33,
after which we have twenty-five verses without it; and then in
three verses of xxxi., 16, 20, 21, and again in 43, it shows itself,
and again after eleven verses in xxxii. 18, 21, and 31, and in xxxiii.
3. After thirty verses in which it is not found, we see it again in
xxxiv. 14, 19, and after seventeen verses again in xxxv. 6. After
ten verses of Jehovistic origin it is found then in xxxvi. 24, and
after seven in xxxvii. 2, 3, after which it does not occur in twenty-
three verses following, but then twice in 27, 32. After fifteen
verses there is then a fit in xxxviii. 12-25 of six times, and after
seven more verses it is found in xxxix. 3, 6, 22, 23, and after
fourteen verses in xlii. 14, 27, 38, the intervals wanting it; and
similarly in xliii. 12, 32, after which there is a fit of five
instances in twenty-two verses, to xliv. 20. There are then
thirty-two verses without it, when it occurs in xlv. 20, 26, and
PECULIARITIES OF THE JEHOVIST.
597
again after twenty Jehovistic verses it re-appears in xlvii. 6, 18,
an interval of only nine Jehovistic verses. There are then
twenty-one verses of the Jehovist without it, when it is found
in xlviii. 14, 19, 19, and after fifteen more it appears in xlix. 13,
19, 20, and finally after nineteen verses without it, it appears
in
1. 14, 22.
Now this pronoun seldom depends for its use in any way on
subject matter, and might reasonably be expected to be equably
distributed through all the writings of the same person. It is
not so, however; but the distribution obeys a different law,
and whatever the cause of this may be, it is plain that large
tracts of matter without the pronoun, interposed between brief
passages in which its use is concentrated, present precisely in
regard to this word the same difficulty, that the Elohistic parts
do as they are found distributed equably through the rest in
our Bibles. It is only the separation that makes the absence
more glaring in these parts, as it would be in the Jehovistic
parts that want it, if they were on any theory separated also.
On the other hand, when we find the same unequable distri-
bution characterise a portion assigned to a third author, as
already noticed, this is a pretty good indication that all pro-
ceeded from the same hand. The Bishop has excluded cer-
tain instances where the pronoun is a mere note of explanation,
and these also we omit to notice.¹
"(IV.) use of indicative with infinitive, e.g. eating, eat;' dying, die,” etc.—
thirty-eight times."
E has it once, xvii. 13."
This is the regular Hebrew form of giving strength or promi-
nence, and naturally occurs almost exclusively in the speeches at-
tributed to interlocutors. Few of these, as it happens, are attri-
buted to the Elohist, but the phrase occurs in one of them. Of
the thirty-eight instances mentioned three do not belong to the
Jehovist proper, and eight are due to the repetition of the
1 The Jehovistic usage, as regards the first person, has been considered in con-
nesion with the Elohistic use of the forms anochi and ani. Some of the remarks
now made will apply, as the reader will perceive, to that case also.
598
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
same form in immediate proximity. The remaining twenty-
seven examples are distributed thinly, with large intervals in
which the form does not occur.
“* (v.) XY?, ‘find,'-fifty-six times.”
A common word unavoidable by any writer when occasion for
its use offers. But of the fifty-six instances of it which are
enumerated nineteen occur in three fits in xviii. 26-32; xxxi.
32-37, and xliv. 8-17. Of the remainder only five are worthy
of notice as peculiar expressions. One of these is xxvi. 12,
"Isaac sowed, and found the same year an hundredfold." This
is a singular instance. There are five instances of the expression
"find grace in the eyes of" one, vi. 8; xviii. 3; xix. 19; xxx.
27; and xxxii. 5. It is always used towards some one in human
form, except in vi. 2 where it is an anthropomorphic applica-
tion of the expression. For the extent of the Jehovistic portions
of the book, the instances are too few to form a distinctive
characteristic, especially as they all but one occur under the
same circumstances in the course of the narrative.
(vr.) and he (she, one, etc.) called his name . . . for, etc. therefore he
(she, one, etc.) called his name, etc., ii. 23; iii. 20; iv. 25; xvi. 11; xxvi. 20, 22;
xxvii. 36; xxix. 32; xxxii. 30; xxxv. 7; xli. 51, 52; comp. xxix. 33-xi. 9;
xvi. 14; xix. 22; xxi. 31; xxv. 30; xxvi. 33; xxix. 34, 35; xxx. 6; xxxi. 48;
xxxiii. 17; 1. 11;-twenty-five times."
The point in these references on which the Bishop relies
is plainly the use of the words for or therefore in explaining the
reason or meaning of a name. He omits to notice the many
other forms in which this is done in both Jehovistic and
Elohistic parts, and it will be well to refer to these places. We
shall first give the Jehovistic instances:-iv. 1, 17; v. 29; x.
25; xvi. 13; xxi. 3+6 (E and J); xxii. 14; xxvi. 21, 31+33;
xxviii. 16+19; xxx. 6 (E and J), xxxi. 49; xxxii. 2, 28;
Xxxviii. 29. Then the Elohistic explanations of names are
these-xvii. 5, 15; xxv. 25, 26; xxx. 8, 11, 13, 18, 20, 24;
xxxv. 7, 8, 15, 18.
Now, after comparing these, if the reader will be at the pains-
PECULIARITIES OF THE JEHOVIST.
599
and taking into consideration that of the passages referred to by
the Bishop, xxv. 30; xxvi. 20, 22, 33; xxx. 6; xxxi. 48;
xxxiii. 17; xxxv. 7; xli. 51, 52, are not given by other critics
to the Jehovist at all, as also are not v. 29; xxi. 3+6; xxvi.
21, 31+33; xxxi. 49; xxxii. 2, 28, of the additional Jehovistic
instances which we have given-he will probably think that the
manner in which names are accounted for in the several parts of
the book is not capable of constituting a distinctive charac-
teristic.
·
** (VII.) know,'-fifty-six times."
Of these nine are in passages which the Bishop does not give
to the Jehovist; and the number might perhaps be further
reduced by rejecting mere repetitions. But it does not matter.
The word is a common and an unavoidable one in any narrative
of sufficient length. According to subject its occurrence is
somewhat concentrated. The only significant use of the word
is where it is said of carnal knowledge. There are seven
instances of this, three of which in iv. are only 1 by A, and
similarly perhaps two in xix. 5, 8. Thus the entire are not
equivalent to more than three or four independent instances
for the large extent of Jehovistic matter.
"(VIII.) D,also,'-ninety-two times."
This is one of the peculiarities on which the Bishop lays
great stress. But the same results will follow from observing
its distribution, as in the case of above considered. First,
we have to reject three instances from xiv., one from xv, a fit of
five from xx., three from xxi., and one from xl., in all thirteen,
as being in parts not assigned by the Bishop to the Jehovist.
Then we have a fit of nine instances in ch. xxiv. 14-46, one of
five in xxvii. 31-45, of four in xxix. 27-33, of four in xxx.
3-15, of six in xxxii. 6-20, of four in xxxviii. 10-24, and of
five in xliv. 9-29. We have close recurrences in iv. 22, 26;
xix. 34, 35; xxii. 20, 24; xliii. 8, 8, 8; xlvi. 34, 34; xlvii. 3,
3, and 19, 19; xlviii. 19, 19, and 1. 9, 9. The remaining
600
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
twenty-two instances of this word are distributed at longer
and shorter intervals through the rest of the Jehovistic matter,
leaving large tracts, equivalent in length to the longer passages
of Elohistic matter, dispersed between them, in which the word
occurs just as little as it does in those Elohistic passages. It is
the separation that creates the distinction.
In regard to this, as to more than one of the preceding charac-
teristics, ch. xvii., the Elohistic character of which is regarded
as a great discovery and one of the main pillars of the system,
has an instance of this Jehovistic token in e. 16, see above (III.)
, (IV.) "use of indicative and infinitive," and instances in
regard to the meaning of names noticed in our remarks on *(VI.)
"* (IX.) NT, 'fear,'-twenty-one times.”
These instances of a very simple and common word, naturally
occurring in its proper place, might be reduced, if it were
worth while, by striking out two instances not assigned to the
Jehovist proper, and a few which follow from others as a matter
of course. The only instances worthy of note are two, in which
the word is used of the fear of God, or religious fear, as dis-
tinguished from mere common natural fear. The word is pretty
equably distributed at long intervals through the book, and its
weight as an indication of peculiar authorship quite inap-
preciable.
"(x.) 'DIN, 'IN."
The use of these has been already considered, in discussing
the Elohistic peculiarities.
הוא
,אָנֹכִי
-
"* (XI.) 77, 'tell,'-thirty-four times."
Another common and necessary word, signifying to show or
declare, as distinguished from other kinds of verbal communica-
tion. It is naturally confined to the parts of the narrative
which treat of the intercourse between different people, and
would not be so likely to occur in places where mere notices of
events are given. And indeed it may be remarked in respect
of all these examples, that in any narrative, however certainly
¹ One of these forms part of a compound word, a in Gen. vi. 3, and should
not have been reckoned at all.
PECULIARITIES OF THE JEHOVIST.
601
(
proceeding from the same pen, there must necessarily be a great
difference in the words used where mere notices of events are
given, and where conversations and transactions between several
persons are recorded. And if in any such narrative the mere
dry notices of events were picked out, the difference would be
as perceptible between these and the other parts, as in so much
of the Elohistic parts when compared with the Jehovistic.
'(x11.) nhui, nhy, ‘put forth, send,'—sixty-four times.”
Of these sixty-four instances, five are in the story of the
raven and the dove, viii. 7-12. These may all be regarded as
:
1 by A, as may also iii. 22, 23, where we have the play on
words and double senses so common in all parts of the book:
"Lest he send forth his hand, Jehovah-Elohim sent him forth."
Also xxii. 10, 12 are only 1 by A Abraham sent forth his
hand, and the angel said, "Send not forth thine hand." Again
in xxiv., verses 7 and 40 are 1 by B, and 54, 56, 59 = 1 by
A. In xxvi., 27 and 29 1 by B; xxxii. 3, 5 = 1; xxxvii.
13, 14 = 1; xxxviii. 17, 17, 20, 23 = 1; xliii. 4, 5, 8= 1; xlv.
5, 7, 81; and 23, 24, 27 = 1. These repetitions diminish
the number by twenty-one. Of the remainder, four or five are
used of putting forth the hand, and the rest of common send-
ing, as of a messenger, or of dismissal from a place. They are
necessary to the narrative, and mark no distinction of authorship.
"E has it twice, xxviii. 5, 6."
=
“(XIII.) Mņy, ‘now,' ny, and now,'—thirty-five times.”
The former occurs twelve times, in nine of which it denotes
simply present time. These should be excluded altogether from
consideration. The latter is a peculiarly conversational phrase,
in which the idea of present time is more or less lost sight of.
It is therefore confined to dialogue, or words of others recorded
by the historian, and the remark made in reference to *(XI.)
applies here. Indeed the adverb in any sense is never used by
the historian in his own person in this book.
“E has pouce in xlviii. 5.”
602
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
"* (XIV.), 'tend' as a flock,-twenty-three times."
Another word of common use, and naturally to be found
in the parts of the history which are concerned with pastoral
life, but not in other parts. Hence from iv. 2, where it refers
to Abel's pastoral habits, it does not occur till xiii., that is,
until all the Elohistic parts are over, except genealogical notices
and a few brief passages of general import. The use of the word
has clearly no weight as an indication of special authorship.
↓
“* (xv.) X17-01, he (she, it) also,' ', 'I also,' etc.,-thirty-one times."
All these, with one exception, have already been referred to
under the separate words, and having thus done duty apart,
they are now made to serve again, as joined together. Plainly
the circumstances, which would suggest the emphasis implied by
the use of the adverb, would render the subject emphatic also,
and so occasion the frequent union of the pronoun and adverb.
“* (XVI.) -↳ My, 'do to,’—thirty-one times."
Of this very plain and natural expression, five of the instances
quoted belong to non-Jehovistic passages in the Bishop's judg-
ment. The remainder, few and scattered, afford no criterion of
style, as being clearly the proper expression at the proper time.
6
"* (XVII.) Elohim of Shem,' ix. 26; 'of heaven,' xxiv. 3, 7; 'of earth,' xxiv.
3; 'of Abraham,' xxiv. 12, 27, 42, 48; xxvi. 24; xxviii. 13; xxxi. 42, 53; xxxii. 9;
' of Isaac,' xxviii. 13; xxxii. 9; xlvi. 1, 3; 'of Nahor,' xxxi. 53; of Israel,'
xxiii. 20."
"Comp. Dread of' Isaac, xxxi. 42, 53; 'thy (your) Elohim,' xxvii. 20; xliii.
23; El of' Bethel, xxxi. 13; xxxv. 7.
Of these expressions, seven are contained in xxiv., and four
in xxxi. The latter are from the nature of the place only
equivalent to a single instance, as are the three first, and the
four last, in xxiv. ; likewise two instances in xxxii. 9.
So
also are two of El Bethel in xxxi. and xxxv., by reference of
the latter to the former, and the two in xxviii. 13. The whole
number of independent instances is therefore only twelve, all of
which, except one, are subsequent to xxiii. As this manner
of speaking implies a particular Elohim, such as Jehovah, in
contradistinction to pretended gods, or the Elohim of other
PECULIARITIES OF THE JEHOVIST.
603
people than those named, it is less likely to be found in a purely
Elohistic connexion, where Elohim stands for the generalised
idea of God.
"* (XVIII.) 777, 'word, matter,'-fifty-nine times."
It is plain that here are two very different uses, which should
no more be classed together than two words of different sound.
In the sense of a word spoken, it will naturally crop up con-
tinually in a narrative of conversations, and is no peculiarity of
diction. In the sense of matter it is more noticeable, but the
number should be reduced by eight instances in parts not
belonging to the Jehovist proper. Also it may be often doubted
whether the literal" word" would not be as proper a translation
as "matter" or "thing." But at any rate, the Jehovist proper
has but twenty-one instances of a very common use of the word.
"E has 77, 'speak,' eleven times, which X also uses."
"* (XIX.) N2, 'now, I pray,' etc.,-seventy-four times."
In the first 168 verses of the so-called Jehovistic writings
this particle does not occur once.
There are then two instances
in xii. 11, 13, three in xiii. 8, 9, 14. The Bishop's reference to
xv. 5 is irrelevant to his argument as non-Jehovistic, but there
are two instances in xvi. 2, after which it does not appear until
xviii. 3, when in fifty verses to xix. 20 it occurs seventeen
times, this fit being highly characteristic of that particular
section, the subject matter of which gave special occasion for
the use of this particle. There follow then thirty verses of
Jehovistic writing without it, when it appears in xxii. 2, after
which follow eighteen verses without it. Then comes another
fit, as usual, in xxiv., where it occurs eight times in forty-three
It occurs once in xxv. 30, and once in xxvi. 28, after
which it is found in xxvii. 2-26 six times, this story also giving
opportunity for it. In the next seventy-three Jehovistic verses
it does not exist, but is twice in xxx. 14, 27, once in xxxi. 12, and
again in xxxii. 11, 29. In xxxiii. 10-15, that is, in six verses, it
is found five times, and once in xxxiv. 8. Then follow forty-one
verses.
604
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
Jehovistic verses without it, when it is again found four times in
xxxvii. 6-32, in xxxviii. 16, 25, after which follow thirty-one
Jehovistic verses without it, and then two instances in xl. 8, 14,
non-Jehovistic. Then come 103 Jehovistic verses, that is in all, 134
without it, when it appears in xliv. 18, 33, in xlv. 4, and after
thirty-nine verses, again in xlvii. 4-29, four times; in xlviii.
9, and in 1. 4-17, five times.
We have exhibited the distribution of this particle in this
manner, on account of the stress laid on its use by the Bishop
of Natal, who says of it that it is "inconceivable that the little
particle of entreaty N, na, could have been used by the same
writer eight times in each of xviii. and xxiv., nine times in xix.,
and seventy-four times in X altogether, and not at all in E;-not
even in xxiii., where Abraham throughout uses forms of cour-
teous entreaty, yet never employs this particle." In the num-
bers which the Bishop has italicised lies the answer to his
argument. The use of the particle is concentrated in certain
short portions to a great extent, and large spaces, where it might
be as much expected, exist without it all. We might say,
after the manner of the Bishop, it is inconceivable that the
same writer who has used this particle so often should never
once have used it in the first 168 verses of Jehovistic matter,
exactly equal to one-half of the entire Elohistic part of the
book, although this early part contains the opportunities
afforded for its use so amply in iii. and iv.; or that in all the
narrative in xxviii. of Jacob's dream at Bethel, or in his com-
munications with Laban in xxix., offering so much opportunity
for its use, it should never occur; or again in 134 verses
between xxxviii. 25 and xliv. 18, containing all the early part
of Joseph's history in Egypt, where frequent opportunity for its
use existed, it should never once appear, the only instances of
its occurrence in all that space having been foisted in, as alleged,
from another writer. Surely the Bishop's argument applies as
strongly to quite as full an extent of the Jehovist's writings, as
the whole of the Elohistic matter.
PECULIARITIES OF THE JEHOVIST.
605
“E never uses №2, but uses instead of it in a formula of entreaty, xxiii. 5, 13,
14."
It is only by a conjectural various reading that the first and
last of these verses contains this particle in place of the pronoun
; but the particle is used in both Jehovistic and Elohistic
passages, and is not an exact equivalent of N. This expresses
strong desire with a deprecatory tone, or with a leaning to such a
tone. The other is a mild form, something like our "perhaps
in expressing a wish.
"
«* (xx.) ib-¬tig‐be, ‘all which is his' etc.—twenty-seven times.”
1.
Of these, two non-Jehovistic should be rejected, and five in
xxxix. 4-8 are only=1, as are also xii. 20 and xiii. 1
Thus this very likely mode of expressing what the author had
to say is reduced to twenty-one. But the manner of speaking
is not uniform in these instances; sometimes all is omitted,
sometimes the pronoun is a dative, sometimes it is affixed to
the preposition with. No stress can be laid on so variable a
phrase, the use of the relative being the only point in which
it is consistent.
“* (XXI.) Dip, ‘arise'
"E has it once, xxviii. 2."
=
set out,-twenty times."
Very little of the movements of the Patriarchs is assigned to
the Elohist, who had therefore less room for the expression,
even if he were a different person from the Jehovist. But he
was not averse to this idiom, which seems to have arisen from
the shifting habits of a nomadic people. The word "arise" does
not mean as the Bishop says, "set out;
set out;" its use seems to have
grown out of the breaking up from a resting place.
"(XXII.)
'youth,' m. and f.—y damsel,'-thirty-five times.”
This is a word only used when mention is to be made of a
youth or damsel, and accordingly, of the thirty-five instances
mentioned twenty-four are concentrated in, and divided amongst,
the three stories of Ishmael, xxi. 12-20, the offering of Isaac,
xxii. 3-19, and the mission for Rebekah xxiv. 14-61, and in
606
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
the speech of Judah when Joseph was about to take Benjamin,
xliv. 22-34. The repetitions of the word in all these passages
amount to no more than one instance each. In xxiv. and
xxxiv. the word is used as a feminine, without the final 7,
but the vowel of the feminine termination is given, and when
the plural is formed in xxiv. 61, it is regular. This may be
dismissed as a case of usage that adds nothing to the Bishop's
argument.
"* (XXIII.) 1, 'come near,'-twenty times.”
Here, too, we have an expression natural and likely in its
proper place, and therefore in no way distinctive. It occurs six
times in xxvii. 21-27, when the blind old man requires persons
and things to be brought near that he may feel or take them.
And again it occurs four times in xxxiii. 6, 7, 7, where Jacob
and his wives and children successively approach Esau to salute
him at their meeting. In xix. 9, 9, xlv. 4, 4, and xlviii. 10, 13,
the repetitions do not add to the value of the instances. Hence
the independent instances are not more then nine for the entire
book.
"* (XXIV.) Thy servant,' 'your servant,' etc., thirty-six times."
These have already done duty in (*1.), and were there con-
sidered. Sixteen of them in xxiv. are reducible to one, and so
in regard to other repetitions already noticed, bringing the
entire number down to about a dozen.
“* (xxv.) obŋ, v. dib, n. 'dream,'-forty-eight times.”
Here also we have a concentration of a necessary word in its
proper place on the needful occasions. While it occurs twice in
xx. 3, 6, which is non-Jehovistic, once of Jacob's dream in
xxviii. 12, three times in xxxi. 10-24, two of which are of
one dream,¹ it occurs thirteen times in xxxvii. 5-20 respect-
ing Joseph's dreams, nine times in xl. 5-16 respecting
the chief butler's and chief baker's dreams, and eighteen
times in xli. respecting Pharaoh's dreams. In each of these
1 The dream in v. 11 should be translated with the article. The pointing cannot
show it in this case, but the sense is clear.
PECULIARITIES OF THE JEHOVIST.
607
cases the instances are only 1 each by A, as is also the
case in xlii. 9, 9. Hence the forty-eight instances are reduced
to seven independent Jehovistic uses of the verb or noun. If it
be insisted on that dreams are distinctive of the Jehovist's nar-
rative, it may be asked, after the Bishop's manner, how can it
have happened that in the first 560 Jehovistic verses or there-
abouts, more than half the Jehovistic, and considerably more
than all the Elohistic matter, there should not be a single dream?
"* (XXVI.) 'Israel' used as a personal name for Jacob,-twenty-nine times.“
Of course the name Israel was not used before it was given to
Jacob. The Elohist has the account of this in xxxv. 10, where
if it is not a personal name, it is not so anywhere. The Bishop
separates v. 21, 22 of this chapter, in which the name occurs, from
the admitted Elohistic context, his principal argument being
the threefold use of Israel in it. The connexion with the context
is sufficient, and the inconsistence of the alleged abiding "beyond
the tower of Edar," with Jacob's supposed haste in going to
Isaac is imaginary. There is no mention of any such haste,
nor does the word denote more than a temporary
stay. The name occurs in the Elohistic xxxvi. 31, and in
xlvi. 8, "the Children of Israel," where it is certainly personal,
as distinguished from the designation of the family as simply
Israel, just as in xlii. 5, one of the passages quoted by the
Bishop, we read that the sons of Israel (the same phrase) came to
buy corn, and in xlv. 21 again. It is also to be noted that while
the Bishop gives all the twenty-nine instances to the Jehovist,
Dr. Davidson, and the critics whom he represents, give twelve of
them to the compiler or the junior Elohist.
“* (XXVII.) The time of day defined, viz., 'morning,' 'evening,' 'daybreak,'
'sunrise,' 'noon,' 'heat of the day,' afternoon,'' cool of the day,' 'sunset,' 'night,'
-forty-four times."
We can afford to let this point pass without any remark.
The Bishop would probably say that "the evening and the
morning" in Gen. i. is not parallel to these definitions of time,
which belong to the details of the minute narratives of trans-
608
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
actions ascribed to the Jehovist. But the definitions of the
year, month, and day in the Elohistic part of the history of the
deluge are quite analogous to the definitions of the time of day
in other narratives.
The Bishop next gives a list of fifty-four expressions that
occur from ten to twenty times in Jehovistic passages, but not
once to be found in Elohistic. Very many of these occur in
fits, which leave so few for other parts of the book as to make
their use quite insignificant; and after the reduction in the
number of instances in the list already examined when their
net value is determined perhaps it is not worth our while to
apply to this second list a process of similar reduction from
gross to net, that would assuredly have a similar effect. And
the same is also the case with a third set of forms that occur
still less frequently, and could never on that account be
regarded as distinctive characteristics in a proportion of the
book assigned to the Jehovist so much larger than to the
Elohist. Several, however, of these less salient marks of
supposed difference of authorship have been noticed in the
progress of the examination, which has been made of the whole
book in detail.
In Pt. v. p. 36-7, the Bishop of Natal has given a table of
thirty-six instances of anthropomorphisms, which he considers
peculiarly characteristic of the Jehovist. It is natural that
anthropomorphisms, implying the personal rather than the
generalised conception of the Deity, should be connected with
the proper name instead of the appellative Elohim, and this
consideration will naturally account for the predominance of
such expressions in the parts assigned to the Jehovist. At the
same time the instances quoted by the Bishop are not so strik-
ing in their character or distribution as he regards them to be.
Thus of the thirty-six instances he has given, the first twenty-
one are confined to the second and third chapters, and form one
of the special characteristics of that piece, which has been
already fully discussed. Seven more belong to ch. xviii., and
PECULIARITIES OF THE JEHOVIST.
609
are not in the same sense anthropomorphic at all. They belong
to a class of manifestations of God in human form, and, as such,
are in a sense anthropomorphic; but the true characteristic
anthropomorphism consists in representing God, as God, in the
exercise of human faculties and possessed of human character-
istics. These seven are quite irrelevant therefore to the Bishop's
purpose in this enumeration. Four in the history of Cain and
Abel; the repentance that he had made man, ascribed to Je-
hovah in vi. 6, 7; the shutting the ark after Noah; the smell-
ing the sweet savour of Noah's sacrifice; the coming down to
see the tower of Babel; and again to see the state of Sodom, in
xviii. 20, 21; and more questionably God's tempting Abraham-
these are the true instances of anthropomorphism which the
Bishop has added to those contained in ii-iii. Against these the
Bishop mentions the Elohistic representations of remembering
Noah, Abraham, etc., making a covenant, appointing a sign of
it, with other instances. But he adds that these are, for the
most part, obviously of a very different kind from the others.
The difference, however, is only that which might be expected
between the personal and more generalised conceptions of God.
The ascription to the Jehovist of all the darker parts of the
history is mainly rendered possible by the ascription to him of
the larger part of the entire book. Yet the Elohistic account
of the deluge and the wickedness preceding it, and the intima-
tion ascribed to the Elohist of the destruction of Sodom and
Gomorrah by Divine interposition, would lead us to conclude
that, if Jehovism had not designedly predominated in the
history of the Patriarchs, these darker traits of character might
have been found in as Elohistic a connexion as the earlier
wickedness of mankind.
The Bishop and others also assign to the Jehovist, or, at any
rate, to the non-Elohistic parts, all indications of a more advanced
civilisation, such as the use of gold and precious stones, musical
instruments, use of camels, earrings, and servants. Surely there
was no time in the history of the Israelites when these things
39
610
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
could have been unknown to them, or more or less unused by
them. It is only from the brevity of the Elohistic parts in all
that relates to the customs of life, and to the social intercourse
of mankind, that these things are not mentioned in them as in
the other parts of the book.
Building of houses with windows, roof, door, is also said to
indicate a later age, such as Solomon's time.
such as Solomon's time. The verses in the
directions for the building of the ark, which speak of the
window, door, etc., are picked out from the Elohist's part,
and given to the Jehovist to supply a defect in his story; and
so the Elohist is supposed to have no better word for the apart-
ments to be made in the ark than nests. Plainly, however, this
word is used not of rooms, as in the English Version, but of
places for the animals to rest in. This word nest may have
been adopted, not only with reference to the birds that were.
to have been taken into the ark, but also as descriptive of
the sort of lairs that should be made for the other animals.
But does the Bishop really mean to say that even so late as
Samuel's time, to which he assigns the Elohistic part, these
things were not familiar to the Israelites? Or, knowing the
evidences of early civilisation of the very high order that pre-
vailed in Egypt, to say nothing of Phoenicia or other adjacent
countries, does he think there was any time in the history of
the Israelites, in reference to which the mention of any of those
things should be considered an anachronism? That they were
at one time in Egypt is not denied; and even at the period
previous to the descent into Egypt, as described in this book,
the intercourse for traffic, the existence of which can scarcely be
doubted, would have rendered nomadic tribes in Palestine and
other adjacent countries more or less familiar with such things,
and especially with articles of personal ornament.
611
CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS.
I. We have seen from the foregoing examination of the entire
book, that as regards the names of God, on which so much stress
has been laid in this discussion, the Alexandrian translators are
by no means in accordance with the present Hebrew text. The
significance of this fact has already been sufficiently indicated,
and does not call for further remark here. But it has been
shown that on the supposition that the usage, as it now exists
in the Hebrew text, is such as it came from the hand of the
original author or authors, it is by no means capricious, or such
as to render the authorship of one person improbable.
We have seen, however, that the supposition of several
authorship is not based on this usage alone, but on other verbal
peculiarities which have been supposed to distinguish the dif-
ferent authors, whose writings it is maintained have been put
together in the formation of the book as it exists at present. The
reader is now in a position to estimate the value of these peculi-
arities as evidences of the point in dispute, and to judge whether
an artificial importance has not been attached to them, which
vanishes as soon as they are closely examined. But whatever
value they may be thought to possess, on the supposition that
we now possess the original Hebrew text, the weight of that
value would be seriously impaired, indeed, it may be said,
rendered quite worthless, by the possibility of such a modernisa-
tion of dialect, as we have already shown to be by no means im-
probable. It is not necessary to suppose that the original text
is not fairly represented; but conclusions based on purely verbal
usages are rendered quite uncertain, no matter with what care
the original text might have been transformed into its present
state. We know that at any rate a transliteration of the text
612
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
took place when the Chaldee or square character was substituted
for the earlier Phoenician alphabet; and this was likely to have
affected the text in many cases through the misreading of
similar letters, and that more especially where numbers were con-
cerned. In addition to what has been already said in showing
that the change was probably not confined to an alteration of the
literal character, we need here only quote what Warburton has said
on this subject. Speaking of the cases in which the occurrence
of words and phrases more modern, than the age to which a
writing purports to belong, may or may not be regarded as
evidence of forgery, he says, "In public and practical writings
of law and religion, this would be found a very fallacious test:
it was the matter only which was regarded here. And, as the
matter respected the whole people, it was of importance that
the words and phrases should be neither obscure, ambiguous,
nor equivocal: this would necessitate alterations in the style,
both as to words and phrases. Hence it appears to me, that the
answer, which commentators give to the like objection against
the PENTATEUCH, is founded in good sense, and fully justified
by the solution here attempted. The religion, law, and history
of the Jews were incorporated; and consequently, it was the
concern of everyone to understand the Scriptures. Nor doth
the superstitious regard, well known to have been long paid to
the words, and even letters of Scripture, at all weaken the force
of this argument: for that superstition arose but from the time
when the Masoret doctors fixed the reading, and added the
vowel points. I have taken the opportunity the subject afforded
me, to touch upon this matter, because it is the only argument
of moment urged by Spinosa, against the antiquity of the
Pentateuch."1
II. It is to be observed that after the parts supposed to have
been of purely Elohistic origin have been abstracted, there still
remains by far the larger part of the entire book; and this
larger part presents the same interchange of the names Jehovah
› Divine Legation, Book II., Sect. 3.
CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS.
613
and Elohim, with as little to account for it, as characterises the
book in its present integrity. Whatever difficulties as regards
the whole that interchange occasions, the like have still to be
encountered in this residual and greater portion.
It is further to be observed that the supposed original
narrative of the Elohist, though copious in its earlier part, is, as
regards the greater part of the history, a mere abstract or out-
line of the briefest possible kind. That from a writing charac-
terised by such copiousness of style and admitted redundancy of
narration, a redundancy not corrected in parts of either Elohist
or Jehovist by the separation, it should be possible to pick out
sufficient intimations direct or allusive, to make when added to
certain other larger portions, which the usage in regard to the
names of God and other supposed distinctive resemblances cause
to be appropriated to the Elohist, a tolerably complete and con-
sistent abstract of the history, and yet still to leave a pretty com-
plete and consistent residue, is what might have been reasonably
anticipated. The likelihood that such an abstract should be
possible produces of itself already a very considerable abatement
from the force of this, as an argument in favour of the diversity
of the authorship.
When the Elohistic narrative, as thus separated from the
whole, is compared with the residue, one very suspicious circum-
stance is, that each narrative is found deficient in very im-
portant matters, and these are matters that would scarcely
have been omitted from either as independent narratives. Thus
while the Elohistic narrative traces the descendants of Adam to
Noah, the Jehovistic has no such descent, although it does trace
the descendants of Cain through several generations. That this
is only a different form of the same genealogy is a most unjusti-
fiable assumption, which still would leave the genealogy incom-
plete, as it does not connect the Lamech, with whose children it
concludes, with Noah, whose father according to the other
account was of that name. Again, while the Elohistic narrative
traces the descent from Noah through Shem to Abraham, the
614
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
Jehovistic account, though giving the descendants of Noah's
sons in general, gives no descent from Shem in the line to
Abraham beyond Peleg the son of Eber. Then the Elohistic
account alone has the institution of circumcision, which was of
so much importance in the history of the chosen race that some
allusion to it at any rate could not fail to have occurred in the
Jehovistic narrative, since according to the theory it was not
the plan pursued by the compiler to avoid repetitions, the
occurrence of which in the combined narrative is one of the great
pretexts for its disruption. The portion left after the abstrac-
tion of the Elohistic story is also rich in matter of moment not
touched on at all in the abstracted part. The largeness, how-
ever, of this residuary portion, as compared with the separated
passages, makes this less significant; only it could hardly have
happened that the Elohistic story should have no account what-
ever of some matters, such as the circumstances that led to the
descent into Egypt, of which it is quite destitute.
But however this cause of suspicion against the correctness of
the theory may be met by the allegation, that in some cases where
the separate histories coincided too closely in their representations
of the same facts, to allow of their being presented as different
transactions in the combined history, the statements of one or
the other were omitted by the compiler, this allegation will not
meet the next suspicious circumstance that is apparent on the
comparison of the two portions. That is the fact, that while
each is very full in its narration of some particulars, and
extremely meagre in its reference to others, it happens to be
exactly in the very cases in which one is full and minute, that
the other is bald and fragmentary, often when the one makes a
distinct statement, the other having only a bare allusion. This
is just what might be expected to be the result of the picking
of one story out of another, which in its integrity was equably
copious, but did not supply materials sufficient for a double
narrative, each member of which should be uniformly copious
in its details. This aspect of the separated narrations is of too
CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS.
615
much significance, in regard to the present discussion, to be passed
over without the instances in which it shows itself being more
particularly displayed.
The first instance of this kind which may be noticed is in the
history of the deluge. A glance at the separated narratives as
already presented to the reader will show, that while the Elo-
histic account of this event, and of the circumstances connected
with it, is very full and particular, the Jehovistic is brief and
fragmentary. And if we consider how small a proportion the
Elohistic part in its whole extent bears to the residuum, this
comparative brevity of the Jehovistic story of the deluge seems
still more out of due proportion.
Passing now to the history of Abraham, we find his departure
from Haran in obedience to the Divine command, his arrival in
Canaan and early wanderings there, with various important
particulars, set out fully in the Jehovistic narrative contained in
chapters xii. to xiv. Now in reference to all this the Elohistic
story is as brief and imperfect as possible. The first mention of
Abraham's departure from Haran is only given in the form
of an allusion, and the entire is comprised in these brief notices
following:-xii. 4, 5, " Abram was seventy and five years old at
his departure from Haran. And Abram took Sarai his wife,
and Lot his brother's son, and all their substance that they had
gathered, and the souls that they had gotten in Haran, to go
into the land of Canaan; and into the land of Canaan they
came;" xiii. 6,
xiii. 6, “And the land was not able to bear them, that
they might dwell together for their substance was great, so
that they could not dwell together;" v. 11, "And they separated
themselves the one from the other;" v. 12, "Abram dwelled in
the land of Canaan, and Lot dwelled in the cities of the plain."
These latter portions relating to Lot's separation from Abraham
may be particularly compared with the full and explicit account
of the same event, and the choice offered to Lot, and made by
him, as set out in the Jehovistic account. The latter, however,
is made to attribute the separation to an unexplained dispute
616
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
1
between the herdmen, while the briefer Elohistic story tells the
cause of the dispute. All the Divine promises to Abraham, up to
the end of ch. xvi., as contained in the Jehovistic history, are also
comprised in the Elohistic account in the brief and unconnected
statement in xv. 1, "After these things the word of the Lord
came unto Abram in a vision saying, Fear not, Abram, I am
thy shield and thy exceeding great reward." And even to give
this much to the Elohist, it is necessary to suppose that the
original reading has been corrupted, and Jehovah substituted
for Elohim, a supposition which, as has been already noticed,
has also to be made at the commencement of ch. xvii.
Let us now proceed to the particulars recorded in ch. xvi.
respecting Abraham's connexion with Hagar, her flight from
Sarah, her return, and the birth of Ishmael. These particulars
are fully described in their various circumstances, but the
Elohist has only this brief mention of so important a part of
the history :--v. 3, "And Sarai Abram's wife took Hagar her
maid, the Egyptian, after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land
of Canaan, and gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife;"
v. 16, 17, " And Abram called his son's name, which Hagar bare,
Ishmael. And Abram was fourscore and six years old, when
Hagar bare Ishmael to Abram." And even here it will be
observed that the birth of Ishmael is only indirectly mentioned,
with evident allusion to some previous direct statement.
Then again the residual history has a very full account of the
destruction of the cities of the plain, and of the circumstances
attending Lot's deliverance, while the Elohist has only this brief
allusive reference to these particulars, as if already fully men-
tioned, xix. 29, "And it came to pass, in God's destroying the
cities of the plain, that God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot
out of the midst of the overthrow, in overthrowing the cities in
the which Lot dwelt.'
""
In like manner the birth of Isaac is but very briefly, and in
the form of an allusion, described in the Elohistic narrative,
while it is fully set out in the other portion. The Elohist's
CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS.
617
statement in regard to a matter of such cardinal importance is
as follows:-xxi. 2, "And Sarah conceived . . . . at the set time
of which God had spoken to him. And Abraham called the
name of his son that was born unto him, whom Sarah bare to
him, Isaac;" v. 4, 5, "And Abraham circumcised his son
Isaac," etc.
Then, on the other hand, the Elohistic narrative has a full and
particular account of the change of the names of Abram and
Sarai to Abraham and Sarah in ch. xvii., while the remaining
narrative has no express mention of this change at all, but
quietly, and as a matter of course, adopts the new names from
that chapter out.
The Elohist has a particular account of Sarah's death, the
purchase of a burying place, and her burial by Abraham, in
ch. xxiii., these matters filling the entire chapter. The remaining
history, on the contrary, has no direct mention of Sarah's death
and burial at all, but just assumes her death as well-known, at
the close of ch. xxiv., where it is said, v. 67, that Isaac, when
married to Rebekah, brought her into his mother Sarah's tent,
and "was comforted after his mother." In like manner the
Elohist in xxv. 7-11 describes at full length the death and
burial of Abraham himself. But the residual history has no
mention of that event at all, except so far as it may be thought
implied in the bestowal of all his possessions on Isaac, and the
sending away of the sons of his concubines "while he yet lived,"
v. 5, 6.
The Jehovistic narrative has full particulars respecting the
marriage of Isaac and Rebekah, while the Elohist barely alludes
to this event in xxv. 20: “And Isaac was forty years old in his
taking Rebekah to wife, the daughter of Bethuel, the Syrian, of
Padan-Aram, the sister of Laban the Syrian," all this being
referred to as if already mentioned. And he is equally brief in
his allusion to the birth of Isaac's sons, while this is fully set out
in the other portion. All the Elohist is allowed to say on that
subject is, that "Isaac was threescore years old when she bare
them."
1
618
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
The Elohist has in xxvi. 26-33 a particular account of the
covenant between Abimelech and Isaac, which gave rise to the
name of the well at Beersheba. All that the other portion has
in reference to this is, that "he came to Beersheba, and there
Isaac's servants digged a well," v. 23-25. In the larger Elo-
histic account, however, the well is referred to as already
digged: "Isaac's servants told him concerning the well which
they had digged," v. 32.
The minute and copious account of the circumstances which
led to Jacob's departure to Haran, of his marriages and stay in
that country, and his return again to the land of Canaan, is
represented in the Elohistic narrative by the few verses, xxviii.
1-5, in which Isaac sends him to Padan-Aram to take a wife
there; and again in xxxi. 18, when it is said that "he carried
away all his cattle and all his goods that he had gotten, the
cattle of his getting which he had gotten in Padan-Aram, for
to go to Isaac his father in the land of Canaan." And all the
circumstances immediately consequent on his return, occupying
several chapters following, are by the Elohist summed up in
the statement of xxxv. 9, that
9, that "God appeared unto Jacob
when he came out of Padan-Aram and blessed him," with the
following verses to the end of 15, describing the change of his
name to Israel, the promise of the land, the setting up of the
pillar, and the giving of the name of Bethel to the place where
God appeared, these particulars being regarded as the Elohist's
account of matters told also by the Jehovist, which in the
conjoined narrative appear as quite different events.
In the midst of this brief abstract, however, we find at the
close of ch. xxxv. the Elohist's account of Jacob's return to his
father Isaac, the age, the death, and the burial of Isaac set out
particularly, while the fuller residual history has no mention
at all of the death of Isaac, except so far as it appears in Esau's
anticipation of it long before in xxvii. 41. Also in xxxvi. 6–8
the Elohist is given a particular account of Esau's departure
with all his family and possessions from the face of Jacob, and of
CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS.
619
his settlement in Seir on account of the insufficiency of the
land to bear them both. On the other hand, the remaining
history has no more particular mention of Esau's settlement in
Seir than the remarks in xxxii. 3, that Jacob sent to Esau to
Seir, the country of Edom; in xxxiii., that Esau returned on
his way to Seir; and in xxxvi. 9 the heading of "The generations
of Esau in Seir,” all these being mere incidental allusions to his
settlement there.
And now, though the remaining portion of the book is so full
in its several particulars relating to the history of Joseph, the
family of Judah, the descent into Egypt of Jacob and the
Patriarchs, and the subsequent events until the death of Joseph,
a very few verses contain all that in a most meagre and uncon-
nected form the Elohist is permitted to tell of these important
matters. In xlvi. 6, 7 he tells, in an abrupt and disjointed
manner, that Jacob, with all his goods that he had gotten in
the land of Canaan, and with all his family, went down into
Egypt, no reason being assigned for this migration, nor any
circumstance mentioned that led to it. Then in xlvii. 11 he has.
the words, "and he gave them a possession in the land of
Egypt;" in 27, "and they had possessions therein, and grew
and multiplied exceedingly;" while in 28 he tells the length of
time that Jacob lived in Egypt, and the whole number of his
years. In xlviii. 3-7 Jacob tells Joseph how God appeared to
him at Luz and promised him the land of Canaan, adopts the
two sons of Joseph, and mentions the death and burial of
Rachel. In xlix. 29-33 he gives charge respecting his burial
in the cave of Machpelah, recounting the burial there of Abra-
ham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, and his own burial of Leah
there also, and then yields up the ghost. And, finally, in 1. 12, 13
his sons fulfil this command and bury him in the field Ephron,
the description of the burying place being there, as on all other
occasions, recited with a prolixity out of all proportion to the
baldness of the narrative in general.
Thus barren has the Elohist's narrative become towards its
1
-
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
620
mencement.
close, notwithstanding its frequent fulness in the earlier parts,
and its preponderating copiousness of narration at the com-
The alternations of full and meagre narrative in
each of the separated histories, and the frequent brevity of each
in regard to particulars on which the other is full, is exactly
what would be likely to characterise, when separated into two
distinct narratives by the mode of treatment applied to this book,
an original unbroken narrative equably full in all its parts, men-
tioning matters explicitly in one place, and referring to the
same briefly, and often indirectly, in another. In effecting the
separation, advantage is taken of these instances of repeated
mention and indirect allusion; the direct statements serving for
one of the severed narratives, and the references and allusions
for the other, vicibus versis. How much more favourably would
the theory present itself to us, if each part observed an equable
fulness throughout, that fulness being in each proportioned to its
relative size as compared with the other. The real state of the
case is highly unfavourable to the probability of the theory, and
strongly confirms the original unity of the whole book.¹
It is true that after the Elohistic narrative, as above repre-
1 The following references indicate the passages ascribed to the Elohist in Dr.
Davidson's table :-
Ch. i. ii. 1.3.
v. 1-28, to "begat."
29, "Noah."
30-32.
vi. 9-22.
vii. 6, 7.
8, except "clean, and of beasts
that were not clean."
9, 11, 13-16 as far as Elohim.
21, 24.
viii. 1, 2 to end of second clause.
3 last clause.
4, the dates.
5, 13-19.
ix. 1-17, 28.
xi. 10-32.
xii. 4 last half, 5.
xiii. 6, 11 last clause.
12 two first clauses.
xv. 1.
Ch. xvi. 3, 15, except first clause, 16.
xvii. xix. 29.
xxi. 2, except second clause.
4, 5.
xxiii. xxv. 7-11, except last clause.
17, 20, 26, last clause.
xxvi. 26-33 first clause, 34, 35.
xxviii. 1-9.
xxxi. 18.
Xxxxv. 9, except "again."
15, 27, except "unto Mamre '
and last clause, 28, 29.
xxxvi. 6, except " to a country," 7, 8.
xxxvii. 1.
xlvi. 6, 7.
xlvii. 11 second clause.
27 last half, 28.
xlviii. 3-7.
xlix. 29-33, except second clause.
1. 12, 13.
The Bishop modifies these references by a few subtractions and additions, but on
the whole the difference is but slight.
CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS.
621
How long it may
As in regard to
sented, has been abstracted, there still remains in the residue
much Elohistic matter, which the partitionists of an earlier date
would have assigned to the original Elohist, and which, if joined
to what is now attributed to him, might have considerably modi-
fied the result of the comparison which has just been made. But
our concern is not with the theory in a form which it has been
found necessary to abandon, but in the form in which its advo-
cates for the present think fit to present it.
retain that form it is indeed hard to predict.
sects and parties, so also in regard to questions of criticism, the
application of tests and discriminating criterions seldom stops
short at a binary division, and has a tendency to continued sub-
division. Thus it has been with the documents into which the
book of Genesis has been resolved. The critics who first thought
only of two original documents, the Elohistic and the Jehovistic,
now find that division insufficient. A third has been now marked
off, to say nothing of the hints that are thrown out of further
subdivision. With regard to this third document Davidson
says, "How have traces of a junior Elohist been detected?
Certain portions of the Pentateuch belong to neither of the two
documents exclusively, but present peculiarities resembling both.
Though Elohim occurs in them, they are not what are termed
Elohistic. Their tone and manner more resemble the Jeho-
vist's." Taking the book as it exists in its integrity, we may
justly regard these passages that savour of both as evidences
of the unity of the entire. The varying phases of a writer's
mind, which will at one time produce one peculiarity, and at
another time another, will also naturally show themselves in
their intermediate stages, and blend both peculiarities. But
when the extremes have been separated, it is impossible to
adjudicate these transitional passages fairly between the two,
and nothing remains for it but to turn them over to a third
author. The whole evidence for the existence of this third
writer, denominated the junior Elohist from the frequent though
1 I., p. 44.
D
622
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
not exclusive use of Elohim, depends on the previous partition
between the Elohist and the Jehovist, the phenomena which
this portion presents being easily reconcileable with the whole
in its integrity, as it contains the peculiarities that distinguish
both the other portions, though not so readily with either of the
latter in their separate state. Thus, for instance, the primitive
Elohist is in general too brief to admit any very diffusive
narrative, especially in regard to the patriarchal history, to be
assigned to him. Thus Davidson says, p. 44, "The history of
the settlement of Jacob's family in Egypt, which is largely
interwoven with Elohistic materials, belongs in a great degree
to the junior Elohist. This is shown by the contents, manner,
and style. The narrative is too diffuse and minute to harmonise
with the summary notices of the primitive Elohist, unless the
occurrences bore a particular theocratic and legal significance,
which they do not." The assumed criterion of theocratic and
legal significance fails, and the theory is modified accordingly.
The necessity which exists therefore for separating so much
Elohistic matter from the primitive Elohistic document, when
once the principle of separate authorship has been adopted,
justifies the comparison of that Elohistic document in its reduced
form, with the remaining materials contained in the book, which
has just been made.
III. Before making a further remark on the book in its general
aspect, as partitioned amongst the several supposed authors—the
Elohist, the Jehovist, the junior Elohist, and the Redactor,-it
will be desirable to present one complete table of the parts
assigned to each in the order of their succession and alternation,
rather than separate tables of the parts assigned to each, such
as Davidson and the Bishop of Natal have given.
Table of Passages assigned to the several Authors.¹
Cr. i. ii. 1-3
4-9
9,
.E. CH. ii. 9-25, iii. 1-21
..J.
iii. 22-24,
.R.
iv.
…….
……..J.
.R.
...J.
tree of life."
In this Table, E. stands for Elohist, J. for Jehovist, J.E. for junior Elohist, and
R. for Redactor. The Bishop of Natal greatly modifies this table, rejecting a
CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS.
623
CH. v. 1-28, to "begat
"C
28,
a son.
29, "Noah."
30-32
vi. 1-3....
4 first clause
remainder
5-8
9-22
vii. 1-5
I.
remainder
9
10
11
12
6-8
8, clean, and of beasts
5
6-12
13-19
20-22
ix. 1-17
(6
>>
·
xi. 1-9
18, to "Japheth”
last clause
that were not clean.".. R.
E.
13-16
16 last clause, 17 .....
18-21
22, 23.
...
24, viii. 1, 2 first clause
viii. 2 second clause, 3 first clause...J.
3 second clause..
4, "the ark rested.'
dates....
"on the mountains, etc."..J.
...
"1
...
..
E.
R.
E.
R.
E.
R.
.J.
.R.
.J.
E.
J.
.E.
"
•••
>>
10-32
xii. 1-4 to "with him"
•
•
•
J.
E.
J.
E.
19
20-27....
28, 29...
1-5 first clause...
5, "every-tongue,
remainder-8 first clause...J.
……..J.
E.
..J.
..E.
E.
...J.
..E.
.E.
..J.
E.
8 second clause
R.
9-20 to "families
...J.
..
20, after their tongues," ...R.
64
remainder..
..J.
..J.
.E.
..J.
.R.
...J.
R.
21
(C
22-25, to Peleg"
25 next clause
""
last clause-31 as far as
"families
..J.
31, "after their tongues," ...R.
remainder, 32
...J.
.R.
E.
...J.
.E
....J.
.R.
R.
..J.
R.
CH. xii. 4 last clause, 5
6-20, xiii. 1-5
xiii. 6
XV. 1....
2-21, xvi. 1
xvi. 2
3
II.
7-11 to "east"
11 last clause, 12 to "place"..E.
12 last clause, 13-18, xiv. ...J.
E.
...J.
..J.E.
.E.
...J.
R.
4-14
15 first clause
xviii. xix. 1-28
xix. 29...
remainder, 16, xvii.
30-38
1-17
18
xxi. 1
...
2 first clause
second clause..
last clause.....
3
4-5
6-7
8-9
10-16, 17 first clause.
17 second clause
remainder, 18-20
"grew
··
20 remainder
xxii. 14-18
19....
20-24
21-34, xxii. 1–13
>>
►
····
·
··
"}
29-34, xxvi. 1–5.
xxvi. 6
""
7-12
13-14 to "servants
14 last clause, 15
16-17
18..........
.E.
J.
.E.
...J.
...J.
..J.E.
....J.
.E.
xxiii.
xxiv. 1-67, except last clause ...J.
67 last clause..
XXV. 1-6
7-11 to "Isaac
11 last clause
12-16
17
....R.
....J.
E.
J.E.
..J.
18-19
20
21-26 to Jacob
<<
26 last clause
27, 28
""
....E.
...J.
.E.
..R.
...J.E.
.....J.
..J.E.
.E.
.J.
..E.
.J.E.
..E.
.J.E.
.R.
J.E.
R.
...
to
..J.E.
...J.
..J.E.
•
.E.
.J.
E.
J.
E.
J.
Ꭱ.
.J.E.
R.
J.E.
R.
..J.E.
Ꭱ.
separate compiler altogether, and giving a much greater proportion of the whole to
the Jehovist. It is unnecessary for the present argument to give the Bishop's table,
as it is mainly directed against the more complex subdivision. This table is formed
from that of Dr. Davidson, who gives Boehmer as his principal authority for it.
624
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
CH. XXVI. 19-22
23, 24
25 to "these"
last clause
26-33 first clause
last clause
34, 35
xxvii. 1-45
46
xxviii. 1-9
10-12
13-16...
17-22
xxix. xxx. 1-13
XXX. 14-16
III.
•
17-40 first clause
xrri. 1
2
3
4-9
10.....
11 first clause
40 second and third ....
remainder, 41-43 and
remainder, 12
13-17 first clause..
17 second clause
18.....
19 first clause
second clause
20 ...
21-23, to "journey"
23, thence to "him
24
25, 26 first clause
26 remainder
27
28, 29
30, 31 first clause..
31 remainder
"(
...
··
);
•
··
ness
52, thence to "pillar
thence to "heap"
"and this pillar"
remainder
...J.E.
....R.
..J.E.
50
"}
..J.
R.
.E.
..J.E.
.R.
R.
.E.
.R.
E.
"in the mount Gilead"..R.
..J.E.
**
•
32-37
38-41 first clause..
41 intermediate part
last clause, 42....
43-45
46-48 first clause
48 remainder,
daughters"
50 remainder
51, to "heap"
to "pillar"
last clause, 52 to "wit-
""
J.
.R.
....
•
..R.
……..J.
..J.E.
....J.
..J.E.
R.
.J.E.
.R.
J.E.
...J.
.E.
J.E.
..J.
J.E.
J.
J.E.
J.E.
J.
.J.E.
...J.
J.E.
..J.
.J.E.
...J.
..J.E.
•
J.E.
..J.
..J.E.
to
R.
R.
..J.
.J.E.
..R.
.J.E.
...R:
..J.E.
………..
.R.
J.E.
...J.
53, to "us"
last clause, 54to“ bread"J.E.
54 last clause, 55 first.........J.
CH. xxxi. 55 intermediate part
last clause
xxxii. 1-2
3-21
22 first clause
XXXV.
intermediate part.........J.
33 last clause....
23 first clause
remainder
24 first clause
second clause
25
26-31 first clause
•
31 last clause, 32
xxxiii. 1-16
17......
18 first clause
6
7
to "Aram"
last clause
...J.
R.
...J.
R.
19
20, xxxiv. 1, to "out" ...J.
xxxiv. 1 concluding words ......R.
2, to "saw her"
remainder
3, 4....
5....
....
8-13, to "said
13 last clause
14-18
19
20-26 first clause.
26 remainder, 27
28-30
31, xxxv. 1-4
5
6, 7, to "him
7 remainder, 8
9, to "Jacob"
"again"
>>
remainder-15 ...
16 first clause
remainder-20
clause
··
20 second clause
21...
22-26
27, to "father
xxxvi. 1...
11
2, to "Anah
66
"
....J.E.
....J.
...J.E.
....J.
R.
9......
""
.J.E.
R.
...J.
...R.
..J.E.
..R.
J.E.
.R.
...J.
R.
"
...J.
.R.
..J.
.R.
..J.
.R.
...J.
.R.
..J.
.R.
first
..J.
.R.
....J.
.R.
...J.
..J.E.
"unto Mamre”
thence to "Hebron "..E.
last clause
....J.
..J.E.
28, 29......
R.
.E.
.R.
.E.
.R.
R.
J.E.
daughter of Zibeon ".R.
....J.
.R.
.J.
J.E.
E.
J.
•
"the Hivite," 3-5...J.E.
6, as far as "went ………..E.
"to a country"
remainder-8
R.
E.
R.
CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS.
625
CH. XXXVI. 10 ....
……………..J.
.J.E.
11-14
15-18, as far as "Jaalam" J.
18," duke Korah"
.R.
19 two first clauses
31-43
Xxxvii. 1.....
...
last clause-28 .
29, 30
2
3, to "age
last clause
""
4-10
11 first clause
66
...
second, 14,to"again"J.E.
14, thence to "Hebron"...R.
last clause, 18 to "off"J.E.
18 second clause
last clause
...
19-22, to "upon him ". J.E.
22 remainder
23 first clause
.R.
last clause
"}
"
..
24-28, to "pit"
28 next clause
last-31
32 first clause
second..
..J.
J.E.
64
remainder, 33 to "said" J.
33, thence to "him" ...J.E.
last clause-35 .........J.
35 last clause, 36, to
Egypt"
36, "unto Potiphar
remainder
xxxviii. xxxix. 1 to "Potiphar". J.
xxxix. 1,"officer-guard," ......R.
remainder-20,
.J.E.
.....R.
..J.E.
66 to
....J.
.R.
prison
20, "place-bound
last clause-23
xl. 1-3 first clause
..J.
..J.E.
..R.
J.E.
.R.
..J.E.
3 remainder
4, 5, to "bound'
5, "in the prison
6, 7, to "were "
7," with him"
8-15 first clause
15 remainder
16-23, xli. 1, to "dreamed".J.E.
xli. 1 last clause, 2-5, to
.R.
..J.E.
..R.
"behold"
....R.
5 remainder, 6-14, to
(C
Joseph"
14 "and-hastily'
"
···
....J.
..J.E.
.R.
J.
E.
J.
>"
17 remainder, 18-21
22, "and"........
J.E.
..J.
..J.E.
.J.
>>
..
.R.
..J.
...
J.E.
..J.
J.E.
....J.
J.E.
....J.E.
..J.
thence to "raiment " .R.
>
last clause, 15 to "dream" J.
15 remainder-17 first clause J.E.
J.
.R.
··
CH. xli. 22 remainder-24firstclauseJ. E.
24 remainder
R.
25 first clause.
second clause
remainder
26 first clause
second clause
27 remainder
28-31
32
33
34 two first clauses
last clause...
35 first clause..
second
last
36-38
39 first clause……..
J.
.R.
J.E.
last clause, 27, to "years" R.
J.E.
...
11
12
remainder...
··
··
50-52
53, 54, to " said"
54 remainder
..
...
xliv. 1, 2
40 first clause
remainder-42, to "hand".J.
42 remainder, 43 ........J.E.
44
45
46, 47
48
49
55-57, xlii. 1-5
xlii. 6 two first clauses
remainder
•
7 three clauses
remainder-9, to
unto them
9, "ye are spies,"
last clause, 10..
xlv. 2, 3
13-20
21-23
24-38, xliii.
4-28
...
3-34, xlv. 1.
2)
..
•
remainder-27,
"Goshen"
J.E.
.R.
....J.
R.
..J.
..J.E.
...J.
..J.E.
...J.
J.E.
...J.
..J.E.
....J.
J.E.
……..J.
J.E.
....J.
..J.E.
......J.
..J.E.
...J.
..J.E.
...J.
.R.
..J.E.
...J.
"said
...J.E.
to
J.
..J.E.
J.
J.E.
J.
J.E.
...
R.
xlvi. 1-5 first clause
5 remainder
6,7.......
J.E.
·
8-12, to "Zarah "
12 remainder
13-27......
.R.
J.E.
28-34, xlvii. 1-11 first clause J.
xlvii. 11 second clause
..E.
...J.
J.E.
....J.
.R.
..J.
E.
....J.
..E.
27 remainder, 28
29-31, xlviii. 1 first clause .R.
40
626
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
CH. xlviii. 1 remainder, 2
...J.E.
3-5, to "mine"
.E.
5,"as Reuben and Simeon" R.
last clause-7
E.
8,9
10, to "see
""
remainder, 11
12 first clause
...J.
..J.E.
...J.
.R.
....J.
..J.E.
..J.
...J.E.
second clause
13, 14..
15-19
20
CH. xlviii. 21, 22, xlix. 1-28, to "unto
them "
xlix. 28 remainder
29-33 first clause
33 second clause.
remainder
1. 1-11
12-13
14
15-21...
...
22, to "house"
remainder, 23.
24-26
Now, if the reader will take the pains to scan the columns of
the foregoing table, he cannot fail to be struck by the large pro-
portion of the book that is supposed to be made up of brief
passages, single verses, sentences, clauses, and phrases of one or
two words, interlaced and interwoven, as picked in varying alter-
nations from the several documents, which are alleged to have been
made use of by the laborious compiler of this tessellated work. In
all there are 370 alternations of authorship, and of these 155 are
in length less than two verses, very many much smaller. The
task, which the Redactor is thus imagined to have set himself,
was very different from that which the modern critics have
accomplished in their analysis and resolution of the book as it
came into their hands. Having assumed certain tests and
criteria of authorship, whether fallacious or not, they had only
to apply these tests as they went along, and then to classify the
separated parts accordingly. The admitted copiousness, and
even redundancy of narration, favoured this operation, and
helped the formation of distinct narratives out of the separated
materials. Whatever did not fit conveniently into any of these
in their separated state, it was easy to ascribe to the compiler
himself; and whenever a want of connexion, or a serious omis-
sion of particulars that ought to have been specified, presented
itself in these separated documents, it was easy also to imagine
an omission by the Redactor of what he did not want in dupli-
cate, and could not convert into narratives of different events,
or to suppose that he altered the grammatical structure to suit
his combined performance. But when he went to work, he
...J.
.R.
..E..
.J.E.
.E.
R.
.E.
.R.
...J.
..J.E.
....J.
.R.
CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS.
627
must have had the documents before him in their separate and
severally unbroken continuity. What he would have been
likely to have done in such a case was to adopt one, the most
complete perhaps, as the basis of his operation; he might,
perhaps, have introduced longer portions of the others, just as
he found them, into the places to which they were obviously
adapted; and with regard to the remainder, he would have
supplied from it, in his own words, whatever was deficient
in that which he adopted as the ground work, or he would,
using the particulars supplied by all as his materials, have
written from himself a complete and continuous narrative.
If the theory was presented to us in this form, then the
compiler would in fact have been an original author, and
the only question would be as to his age and name. There
would have been no antecedent impossibility that Moses himself
might have proceeded in this way, any more than that the three
first Evangelists, having in memory, as seems most probable,
some protevangelium, or statement of Gospel history drawn up
for use in the congregations, should have interwoven the same
in their own fuller narrations. The application of the tests,
however, does not suit such a form of the theory, and a
compiler is therefore supposed to have set about breaking up
the several documents into minute fragments, and then to have
pieced and patched these together into a continuous narrative.
That any one should have attempted this operation would imply
such a superstitious reverence for the mere letter of the several
documents, as is contradicted by the freedoms which this com-
piler is supposed to have taken not only with the sense, which
he must often have altered, but even with the letter itself in
many cases. That any one should have undertaken such a task
is what may well seem incredible to one accustomed to form his
opinion on, at least, a reasonable amount of probability. This
remark, indeed, is far more applicable to the complex arrange-
ment of the parts of the book adopted in the table we have just
given, than to the more simple partition of the Bishop of Natal;
"
628
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
but it does apply with very considerable force to it also, on the
supposition that the second Elohist was a different writer from
the Jehovist, who subsequently interwove the two Elohists
with his own additions. It applies, at least, so far as the second
Elohist's portions extend.
That the author of the entire book in its present state
might not unreasonably be admitted to have incorporated
a previously existing document, like that which forms the
vertebral column of the three first Gospels, is what no one
would feel any disposition to question, if only the evidences
of such an earlier document were sufficiently clear, as they
certainly are in the case of the Gospels. The absence of evidence
sufficient to sustain this supposition, as regards the Elohistic
document supposed by some to be embodied by a later Jehovist,
has been sufficiently exhibited in the foregoing examination.
The supposition of a later introduction of certain Jehovistic
and other passages by the writer himself may, perhaps, claim a
greater degree of probability; though it is not necessary to account
for the phenomena presented by the book in its present state, if
the considerations already brought before the reader have any
weight. The fifth chapter, which is the proper sequel of the
introductory passage ending with ii. 3, and which seems to have
been originally intended as the first of the principal sections
following the Exordium, having the more formal title, "This is
the book of the generations of Adam," may have been com-
posed in immediate connexion with that commencing passage.
Then the intervening portion, so different in its representation
of the process of creation, may have been introduced by the
author at a subsequent period; only in such case the reference
to iii. 17 in v. 29 must have been simultaneously introduced in
the latter place. Such a reference, connecting the new matter
with the old, the original writer might have thought of intro-
ducing; a subsequent compiler would scarcely have interpolated
it, where nothing existed in the document before him to suggest
it to his mind. If then we may reasonably assume the subse-
CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS.
629
quent introduction of the section entitled, "The generations of
heavens and earth," what was thus done in one instance may
have taken place in others also. Such passages as vii. 1-10,¹
viii. 20-25, and others, the omission of which would not
break the continuity of the narrative, and which may be
thought to exhibit a somewhat different mental habitude, either
as regards the names of God, or in other respects, from their
present context, or to repeat somewhat needlessly what was
already told, may be due to such interpolation by the author
himself, at a period subsequent to the original composition of
the book. Few works are free from such additions made by
their own authors; and in an age when the art of composition
was not cultivated as in after times, less care may have been
taken to avoid the appearances of the more recent introduction
of the passages in question. In the investigation already made
this supposition has not been relied on. It seemed better to
judge the book as it exists, without the aid of any such con-
jecture; and it is hoped that a good case has been made out,
independently of any supposition of this kind. It is not amiss,
however, to suggest here the possibility of a subsequent re-
touching and introduction of fresh materials, which the critics,
who may, perhaps, refuse to this book the benefit of such a
conjecture, are yet in the habit of giving to their own more
artistically constructed writings.
One may feel the less scruple in claiming for a single author
of the entire book this privilege of introducing new matter here
But
1 The connexion, which, as we have already seen, exists between the several par-
ticulars enjoined in vii. 1-5, and the fulfilment of the commands as stated in the
succeeding verses (see p. 368), renders it necessary to suppose that such an introduction
by the author, at a later period, must have extended to at least the tenth verse.
then this would bring together parts, on the differences of which the supposition
of their different authorship has been grounded. One of these differences is the
change from Jehovah to Elohim, and the other the absence of any distinction as
regards the number of pairs, when the distribution of clean and unclean animals is
mentioned in v. 8. If only vii. 1-5 were subsequently introduced, as above sug-
gested, then the author must have taken the several particulars contained in the
Divine command from those specified in the succeding verses, and put them in the
same order. The necessity, however, of multiplying hypotheses diminishes the pro-
bability of any conjecture.
630
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
and there, on subsequent reviews of his writing, and at times
when different circumstances, or variations in mental habitude,
may have occasioned variations of phraseology, since the Bishop
of Natal himself, in the last volume of his work, has claimed the
same privilege for his Jehovist. Having admitted the validity
of the reasons for separating the portions of the book ascribed to
the second Elohist from those of the Jehovist, reasons more or
less valid, as the legitimate application of the principle of sub-
division, on the grounds already relied on for separating the
Elohistic parts, he still thinks these portions ascribed to the
second Elohist may have been written by the Jehovist at a dif-
ferent time from the principal Jehovistic parts. Thus, Pt. V.,
p. 60, he speaks of the probability of "the second Elohist being
the same as the Jehovist, only writing at an earlier period of his
life, before he had acquired that freedom and fluency, which
seems to characterise the more decidedly Jehovistic matter.”
And again in p. 65 and 67, and several times elsewhere through
the volume, the same notion is put forward with more or less
confidence. And though he claims for these parts a closer
agreement in style than between the original Elohist's writing
and either, yet in what is simply a matter of degree, or depends
on difference of circumstances, greater intervals and more widely
different circumstances might have occasioned greater diversity.
The brief and simple style of much of the Elohistic parts might
reasonably be thought to indicate, that a dry abstract of leading
facts was first prepared, which was afterwards at different times
enlarged and filled up. This, however, cannot have been the case
with some of the fuller portions of the Elohistic matter, such as
ch. i. and the history of the deluge, which may have been written
at large at the earlier period, the rest, though in parts also
fuller than others, being as yet mainly only sketched out. And
thus the book might have gradually assumed its present form in
the hands of a single author.
In conclusion, it remains only to be remarked, that the unity
of the book rests on an unbroken tradition, which even in the
NOTE A.
631
!
time of the LXX. appears to have been as unquestioned as
it was in subsequent ages, if indeed they had not more satis-
factory evidence as to its authorship than any mere tradition,
however uninterrupted. The burden of proof rests, therefore,
on those who now maintain the plurality of authorship; and
those who advocate the unity are only called on to rebut or
debilitate such proof as may be adduced. If they are success-
ful in this, they are not obliged to produce any positive proof in
support of the traditionary character of the book, which may
well claim to hold its prescriptive rights until they have been
disproved. That the arguments relied on in proof of the
plurality of authorship have in some cases been wholly re-
butted, in others so much weakened as to be of little force.
in proof of the conclusions drawn from them, and that the
residue are quite insufficient to establish these conclusions, is the
least that may be claimed as the result of the foregoing examin-
ation. It is hoped, however, that many positive proofs of the
unity of authorship have been presented from time to time, and
that whatever has been thus adduced as direct evidence of unity
will be found not wholly destitute of weight.
NOTE A.
(Page 306, line 23.)
IN drawing conclusions from fragments of ancient authors,
Orphic verses, oracles, and such like remains of antiquity, we
should remember how manifestly corrupt these things have
in many instances come to us, taxing the ingenuity of the
learned either to elicit meaning from them, or to restore their
metre. However the conjectural emendations of such remains
may often carry with them the self-evidence of their success, in
many cases we must still feel considerable doubt, and greatly
distrust such amended authorities in discussing controverted
questions. Moreover this habit of applying conjectural emenda-
632
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
1
2
tion to corrupted remains of ancient authors has not been a
practice adopted only by modern critics. Ancient critics also
tried their hands in this way. Thus from a passage of Por-
phyry, quoted by Warburton, Divine Legation, B. II., sect. 3,
we learn that this writer, a great collector of such curiosities,
was accustomed thus to deal with what he has transmitted to
later times. In the passage referred to, which has been pre-
served by Eusebius, Porphyry declares to God, that the ancient
oracles, which he collected, he gave without addition or sub-
traction as regards their meaning, though he corrected erroneous
readings, used clearer for more obscure expressions, filled up
defective metres, and drew his pen through what seemed
irrelevant to the writer's purpose. Now though he adds that
he preserved the sense unaltered, under fear of the punishment
due to sacrilege, it is plain that remains thus dealt with can
have very little weight as authorities in regard to questions of
moment. What Porphyry did others may have done likewise,
without even their own attestation of fidelity. We are not only
obliged to trust the honesty and good judgment of the corrector,
without being able to compare the amended with the corrupted
text, but we are also deprived of all opportunity of judging
whether the quotation belongs to its pretended date by the
evidence of a phraseology corresponding or not with such an
age. The diction being modernised, we must take the genuine-
ness of the fragment on the sole authority of the writer who
cites it. We need not say how precarious conclusions drawn
from such authorities, and mainly depending on them, must
necessarily be thought, especially when it is on the diction itself
that these conclusions rest. It is plain that such precarious
inferences, and weakly supported conjectures, can never be justly
allowed to disturb the existing belief on any subject of moment.
1 Ἐπεὶ κἆγω τι θεοὺς μαρτύρομαι, ὡς οὐδὲν οὔτε προστέθεικα, οὔτε ἀφεῖλον τῶν
χρησθέντων· εἰ μή που λέξιν ἡμαρτημένην διώρθωσα, ἢ προς τὸ σαφέστερον μετα·
βέβληκα, ἢ τὸ μετρὸν ἐλλεῖπον ἀναπλήρωσα, ἤ τι τῶν μὴ πρὸς τὴν πρόθεσιν
συντεινόντων διέγραψα. Prep. Evang. iv. 7.
3 Ως τόν τε νοῦν ἀκραιφνῆ τῶν ῥηθέντων διετήρησα, εὐλαβούμενος τὴν ἐκ τῆς
ἱεροσυλίας ἑπομένην δίκην.
633
NOTES B. AND C.
NOTE B.
(Page 311, line 24.)
FUERST's statement that (Gawan) was the name of a
Byblian deity is probably to be traced to the article by Movers
on Phœnicia in Ersch and Gruber's Cyclopædia, if not inde-
pendently derived from the same source. But Movers there only
infers the existence of this name from the Tavas of Lycophron
and Tzetzes. As an explanation of Taúas it is, however, far
more probable, than the conjectural 'Iaúas, which the Bishop of
Natal, after the same Movers, adopts in support of his theory,
but which would entirely depend on the truth of the theory it-
self for any probability it might possess.
•
NOTE C.
(Page 312, line 2.)
IN reference to such forms as 'Aßdaîos, Zeßedaîos, and other
like names derived from the Hebrew, it is to be observed that
the termination aîos is the normal representative of the Hebrew
terminations and, common in gentile adjectives, but not
confined to adjectives of that kind. The termination - in proper
names of men may have been the pronominal suffix, but the names
of persons ending in were properly adjectives applied as
names, and expressive of personal qualities or circumstances; see
Ewald, Krit. Gramm. Ausfürhl, §. 138. These proper names
in the canonical books are commonly represented in their
Hebrew form. But we may instance the name Haggai, which
is presented with a Greek termination as 'Ayyaîos. And this
form is common in the Apocryphal books. It is true that in
the first book of Esdras one or two names with this termination
represent names, that in the canonical book of Ezra appear with
the termination iah, as Zapaîos for Shemaiah. But the names
in the Apocryphal book of Esdras are generally corrupt. Besides,
.
634
GENESIS AND ITS AUTHORSHIP.
to serve the purpose for which the name Abdæus is adduced, it
is not enough that this termination might represent the Hebrew
termination jah. To serve as a proof of the use of this element
in the composition of Phoenician names it should be the proper
representative of that termination, and not regularly represent
any other. This not being the case, the occurrence of a single
instance like 'Aßdaîos can prove nothing. To say the least, it
is more likely to represent one termination than the other. To
argue from the mere possibility of its being used irregularly is
quite inadmissible in the present case.
NOTE D.
(Page 315, line 7.)
THAT the Phoenicians in later times may have adopted
religious words and notions from the Jews, might be thought
probable from the case of the Syro-Phoenician woman mentioned
in the Gospels. An imitation may have taken place even at a
much earlier period. We read in the book of Amos, i. 9, of
"the brotherly covenant" which the Tyrians are charged with
being unmindful of, when they delivered up the captivity to
Edom. This may have had reference to the league between
Solomon and Hiram. Solomon adopted from the Tyrians the
worship of the Sidonian Ashtoreth, to whom he built a temple on
the Mount of Corruption at Jerusalem, which remained with
other monuments of heathenism to Josiah's time, when they were
all destroyed. On the other hand we find Hiram, as mentioned
in 1 Kings v. 7, saying "Blessed be Jehovah this day, who hath
given to David a wise son over this great people." It was not as
a Tyrian God that Hiram thus blessed Jehovah, but as the God
of Israel. This appears from the form in which the words are
given in 2 Chron. ii. 12. He there says it was "because Jehovah
hath loved his people," that he made Solomon king over them,
and then adds "Blessed be Jehovah, the God of Israel, that
NOTE D.
635
made heaven and earth." In this Jehovah's people are not man-
kind in general, nor Tyrians as well as Israelites, but Israel
alone. Hiram recognises the God of Israel, and adopts the
Israelite addition, "maker of heaven and earth," just as Abraham
recognised the El-Elion of Melchizedek, and adopted the addition,
"possessor of heaven and earth." Such an adoption of Hebrew
worship by the Phoenicians was much more consistent with their
idolatrous notions, than was Solomon's adoption of heathenish
worship with the religion of the Israelites, and the interchange
is highly probable. Indeed we have some slight evidence of its
existence on this occasion, as just shown, though not of its sub-
sistence as long as that of the idolatrous worship amongst the
Israelites borrowed from the Tyrians. Whether the expression in
Ezekiel xxviii. 14, "Thou wast upon the holy mountain of God,”
has any reference to this matter or not, it is clear that if it were
proved, which it has not been, that the name Jehovah, or the
shorter form Jah, was at any time employed by the Phoenicians,
the Biblical history itself, according to its own manner of repre-
senting the case, would sufficiently account for such a fact,
without the monstrous hypothesis that the Israelites borrowed
the name from them at the late period that is alleged, or at
any time.
LAUS DEO.
HERTFORD
PRINTED BY STEPHEN AUSTIN.
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