THE PENTATEUCH.

If Moses told the truth when he wrote, “God spake all these' words,” the question of verbal inspiration is settled, so far as the Ten Commandments are concerned. If God has revealed His being at all, it is also settled. Admit for a moment His personality, and two results logically and necessarily follow: First, He comes to us in His Son, the living Word, and second, He addresses us in the Bible, the written Word. Both must be perfect, because they proceed from Him. He could not be what He is without manifesting Himself in a way that meets our need as sinful and ignorant.

Hence the thoughtful man expects to find it written, “God spake all these words.” But if Moses told the truth, God spake more than these words, for we read, “God said,” Gen. i. 3; “The Lord God called unto Adam and said unto him,” Gen. iii. 9; “The Lord God said unto the woman,” Gen. iii. 13; “The Lord said, “My Spirit shall not always strive with man,” Gen. vi. 3; “The Lord said unto Noah,” Gen. vii. 1; “The Lord said unto Abram,” Gen. xii. 1; “The Lord appeared unto Isaac and said,” Gen. xxvi. 2; “The Lord said unto Jacob,” Gen. xxxi. 3; “God spake unto Israel,” Gen. xlvi. 2. It is not for foolish man to deny these plain statements, and he will not, if he is led by tile Spirit to accept the supernatural origin of the Bible.

Moses also informs us that when he was directed. to go unto Pharaoh, King of Egypt, with a message, he replied, ‘‘O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither heretofore, nor since Thou hast spoken unto Thy servant: but I arm slow of speech, and of a slow tongue. And the Lord said unto him, Who hath made man’s mouth?” Observe, the Lord says nothing about man’s mind. “Now, therefore go, and I will be with thy mouth, and teach thee what thou shalt say,” Ex. iv. 10-12. The Lord did not promise to be with his head and teach him what he should think, but to be with his mouth and teach him what to say.

“And Moses came and told all the people all the words of the Lord, and all the judgments; and all the people answered with one voice, and said, All the words which the Lord hath said will we do. And Moses wrote all the words of the Lord,” Ex. xxiv. 3, 4, Of the two tables of stone, which he he brake at the foot of the mountain, in his righteous indignation against the idolatry of Israel, he says, “The tables were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, graven upon, the tables,” Ex. xxxii. 16. This is repeated seven times in the Bible, and unless Moses was a common liar, God wrote, and wrote in words. “The Lord said unto Moses, Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first; and I will write upon these tables the words that were in the first tables which thou brakest,” Ex. xxxiv. 1. “Moses gathered all the congregation of the children of Israel together, and said unto them, These are the words - which the Lord hath commanded,” Ex. xxxv. 1.

“The Lord called unto Moses, and spake unto him out of the tabernacle of the congregation, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them,” Lev. i. 1, 2; iv. 1, 2; vi. 1, 8, 9, 19, 2-1; vii. 22, 28, 86, 88; viii. 1, 4, 5, 9, 18, 37, 21, 29, 34, 85, 36; ix. 5, 6, 7, 10, 21; x. 1, 8, 8, 11, 18, 15, 18; xi. 1; xii. 1; xiv. 1; xv. 1; xvi. 1; xvii. 1, 2; xviii. 1; xix. 1; xx. 1; xxi. 1; xxii. 1, 17, 26; xxiii. 1, 9, 23, 26, 38; xxiv. 1, 13, 23; xxv. 1; xxvii. 1. These references are given to show how utterly groundless is the assertion of Higher Criticism, that Moses is not the human author of the book, on whose every page his name is stamped, “The Lord spake unto Moses in the wilderness. . . saying,” Num. i. 1. Similar expressions occur in this book 172 times.

It is not surprising, therefore, to find that forty years after the Law was given, this message was sent unto Israel, “Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it, that to may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you... The Lord said unto me, Gather me the people together, and I will make them hear my words. . . . And the Lord spake unto you out of the midst of the fire: ye heard the voice of the words, but saw no similitude; only ye heard a voice! . . . . Did over people hear the voice of God, speaking out of the midst of the fire, as thou hast heard and live? . . . Out of heaven He made thee to hear His voice, that He might instruct thee: and upon earth He showed thee His great fire; and thou heardest His words out of the midst of the fire,” Deut. iv. 2, 10, 12, 33, 30.

“The Lord talked with you face to face in the mount, out of the midst of the fire. . . . These words the Lord spake unto all your assembly in the mount, out of the midst of the fire, of the cloud, arid of the thick darkness, with a great voice; and He added no more: and He wrote them in two tables of stone, and delivered them unto me,” Deut. v. 4, 22. Afterwards He added more; and for their preservation, “it came to pass, when Moses had made an end of writing the words of this law in a book, until they were finished, that Moses commanded the Levites, which bare the ark of the covenant of the Lord, saying, Take this book of the law, and put it in the side of the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, that it may be there for a witness against thee,” Deut. xxxi 24-26.

Such expressions as “God said,” “the Lord spake, saying,” “the Lord commanded,” “the word of the Lord,” occur 680 times in the Pentateuch; and what is the man who professes to believe the Bible going to do about it? Either receive the testimony, or throw the Bible into the lire, and boldly proclaim that we have no revelation from God, that after all the Bible has done for the world, we are still left groping in the darkness of heathenism.

It is a convenient dodge of those who are not willing to accept the words of Scripture as true, to say that they believe in the inspiration of the “concept” or thought; and it is enough to answer in the language of the late Dean Burgon, one of the most scholarly men in the Church of England, “As for thoughts being inspired, apart from the words which give them expression, you might as well talk of a tune without notes, or a sum without figures. No such dream can abide the daylight for a moment. No such theory of Inspiration is even intelligible. It is as illogical as it is worthless; and cannot be too sternly put down.”

As to the integrity of the Pentateuch, it has been preserved in remarkable ways. The belief of the Jews in the inspiration of their Scripture was so fixed, that they would endure any persecution even unto death, before they would change a single letter; and a law was enacted proclaiming a man, who should make the slightest alteration in the Book, guilty of unpardonable sin. Hence, while there are now more than 1,100 manuscripts of the Old Testament in the original tongue, it has been shown by competent Hebrew scholarship that they agree with each other in every important point.

Besides, the most intense prejudice and hatred existed between the Samaritans and Jews long previous to the coining of Christ, and at the coming of Christ. Nearly 800 years before He came, a translation from the original Hebrew into Greek was begun. On comparing this with the Samaritan Pentateuch, it is found that they agree with each other, and with our Bible. Any serious interference, therefore, with the text was simply impossible, and he who reads the Pentateuch can be assured that “God spake all these words.”