THE PROPHECIES

1. Isaiah, who prophesied about one hundred and fifty years before the exile and more than one hundred before the time of Josiah, recognizes the prevalence of Pentateuchal ideas, customs, and regulations. He speaks of sacrifices and offerings — burnt-offerings, meat-offerings (מִנְחָה); offerings of bullocks, rams, lambs, and he-goats; incense, prayers, sabbaths, appointed feasts, fasts, new moons, and calling of assemblies.¹ Evidently Isaiah was familiar with the entire round of the Pentateuchal ritual. Further, he was familiar with it in full operation in his time. It is true, he severely reprimanded the people, but not because they engaged in the services above mentioned. It was their impiety and wickedness in these services that the prophet denounced. Even their Sabbath observance and their prayers came in for a share of the prophet's reprobation; not, however, because prayer and the keeping of the Sabbath are not according to the law and will of God, but because their hands were full of blood.² Just here Cheyne, who reproves Driver for his timidity and conservatism, makes some very remarkable admissions. He remarks as follows:" Not that Isaiah intends to condemn ritual altogether, any more than St. James does." He is further willing to admit that the burnt-offerings may be the guilt-offerings as provided for in Leviticus; that the calling of assemblies points to Leviticus 23:4; the new moons to Numbers 10:10; 28:11-16; and that Isaiah 4:5 is "the first of a long series of references to the exodus" (see Ex. 13:21, 22).³ Were not, then, Leviticus and Exodus in existence in the time of Isaiah?

2. Hosea, who prophesied about two hundred years before the exile, often alludes to laws and events as recorded in the Pentateuch. We give references as follows: Hos. 4:6 and 8:1; Hos. 5:10 with Deut. 19:14 and 27:17; Hos. 8:11 and 12:11 with Deut. 12:11-14; Hos. 9:4 with Num. 19:11, 14, 22 and Deut. 26:14; Hos. 9:10 with Num. 25:3-9; Hos. 11:8 with Gen. 19:24, 25; Hos. 12:3-5 with Gen. 25:26 and 32:24 and 28:30 and 35:15; Hos. 12:9 with Lev. 23:34, 41-44 and Neh. 8:17; Hos. 12:12 with Gen. 29, 30.

We call special attention to one passage, as follows: "I have written to him the great things of my law, but they were counted as a strange thing."⁴ This is a very troublesome passage to the critics, who maintain that the Pentateuchal law was not formulated before the exile. The word translated "the great things" (רֻבֵּו֭) properly means ten thousand or multitudes. Hence the

passage at least seems to indicate that there was a large body of laws in the time of Hosea, two hundred years before the destruction of the first temple. This is fatal to the analytic hypothesis. Hence, of course, the advocates of this hypothesis have much to say about this passage. Their struggles with it are amusing. Kuenen (1) admits "that the existence of written 'torah' also is expressly asserted in one passage (Hos. 8:12) and rendered highly probable by the context in others." He translates as follows: "I write (or, if I write) for him (Israel) ten thousand of my torahs, they are accounted as those of a stranger. "But (3) he pronounces the text itself doubtful, not justified by the context, and "militated against by the displeasing hyperbole of ten thousand," (4) Next he is forced to the alternative of thinking that "perhaps we must make up our minds simply to read, 'If I write for him the words of my torah' " — a hypothetical utterance. (5) But, as a last resort, our critic, though compelled to admit that in the time of Hosea there was a written torah, yet says, "In case of need, 'torah' may be taken to refer to the oral teaching of priests and prophets."⁵ Such criticism needs neither answer nor comment. Wellhausen deals with the passage, not in a more masterly, but certainly in a more magisterial way. He endeavors to silence our passage as a witness against his views by adopting a various reading and also by changing the translation, i. e., by substituting "instruction" for "law" (in German, "Weisungen" for "Gesetz"). Having settled things to his own satisfaction in this way, he expresses his sympathy for the text as having experienced "the undeserved misfortune" of being cited in support of traditional views. Professor W. R. Smith claims that the passage ought to be translated as follows: "Though I wrote to him my torah in ten thousand precepts, they would be esteemed as a strange thing. " He admits the torah or law here spoken of to be Mosaic, but claims that it was unwritten.⁶ Professor Briggs would translate, "Though I write for him my law in ten thousand precepts, they are accounted as a strange thing," but admits that in the passage there is " a general reference to the fact that divine laws were recorded."⁷ In regard to this passage, we remark as follows:

(1) About the only point of agreement concerning it, among these critics, is that it must be construed so as not to favor the traditional belief. The difficulty of this undertaking is demonstrated by their antagonistic efforts and discordant interpretations.

(2) In one sense, Kuenen and Wellhausen are right; for if Hosea here speaks of a divine law in ten thousand precepts as already existing, the analytic theory of the gradual formation of the Torah by evolution is certainly in danger. Hence the necessity of getting rid of the passage by impeaching its genuineness and introducing a various reading.

(3) We suggest that the analysts might get rid of this troublesome passage by their much-used expedient of supposing that it was not written by Hosea, but was inserted by some redactor in the time of Ezra.

(4) As to the employment, in this passage, of the imperfect tense of the Hebrew verb, this is not inconsistent with the usual interpretation, since in Hebrew, as in English, the past is often represented as present.

3. Amos, who prophesied about two centuries before the exile, makes many allusions to Pentateuchal laws, customs, and ideas. "Also I brought you up from the land of Egypt, and led you forty years through the wilderness, to possess the land of the Amorite."⁸ This very language is found in Deuteronomy 8:2 and in other places in the Pentateuch. "And I raised up of your sons for prophets, and of your young men for Nazarites. . . . But ye gave the Nazarites wine to drink."⁹ Compare with Numbers 6:2, 3. "Bring your sacrifices every morning, and your tithes after three years."¹⁰ See Exodus 29:30; Numbers 28:4; Deuteronomy 14:28; 26:12. "And offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving with leaven, and proclaim and publish the free offerings."¹¹See Leviticus 7:13; 23:17; 22:19-21; Deuteronomy 12:6. "I hate, I despise your feast days, and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies. Though ye offer me burnt-offerings and your meat-offerings, I will not accept them; neither will I regard the peace-offerings of your fat beasts."¹² See the regulations in Leviticus 23:2-36; 1:3-14; 2:1; 3:1. "When will the new moon be gone?"¹³ See Numbers 10:10. Thus Amos alludes to the tithes, the three-year tithes, the feasts, the convocations, the Nazarites and their abstinence from wine, the daily sacrifices, the burnt-offerings, the meat-offerings, the peace-offerings, the free-will offerings, the new moons, the Sabbaths, and nearly all the Levitical institutions. Had there been in the writings of this prophet an express reference to the laws and books of Moses, the advocates of the analytic hypothesis would, of course, have claimed an interpolation by a later hand, or that Hosea lived after the exile.

4. Joel also mentions the meat-offering and the drink-offering, the priests and the altar, sanctifying the fast, calling an assembly, and sanctifying the assembly, and he makes other allusions to Pentateuchal laws and institutions.¹⁴ That his prophecy presupposes the Pentateuch seems to be admitted, as is evinced by the fact that the analytic critics have finally found it necessary to assign to it a post-exilic date in order to maintain their hypothesis of the late origin of the Pentateuch.

1) Isa. 1:11-15; 57:6; 58:3-7.

2) Isa. 1:15.

3) Cheyne on Isaiah, pp. 6, 7, 29.

4) Hos. 8:12.

5) Hexateuch, pp. 175-178.

6) Old Testament in the Jewish Church, p. 297.

7) Higher Criticism of the Pentateuch, p. 14.

8) Amos 2:10.

9) Amos 2:11, 12.

10) Amos 4:4.

11) Amos 4:5.

12) Amos 5:21, 22.

13) Amos 8:5.

14) Joel 1:9, 13; 2:17; 1:14; 2:16.