CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE. 



mention is made of priests. Ruth could not have 

 been written before the close of David's reign, if 

 so early. The genealogy carried down to him 

 shews the theocratic significance he had acquired, 

 and the expression, ' Now this was the manner in 

 former time,' &c. (iv. 7), indicates a considerable 

 change in the manners and customs of the people. 

 The Books of Samuel (originally forming one 

 work) are compiled from distinct and independent 

 sources e.g. there are two divergent accounts of 

 David's introduction to Saul (xvi. 14-23, compared 

 with xvii. 55-58). The repeated mention of Judah 

 and Israel points to a period later than the separ- 

 ation of the monarchy as the date of the final 

 redaction ; but as the language is remarkably 

 pure, and quite free from late forms and Chal- 

 daisms, the compilation must be much older than 

 the Exile. The Books of Kings also formed 

 originally but one work. It belongs to the period 

 of the Captivity, and was probably executed in 

 Babylon. The sources from which the editor or 

 author drew are various, and of different dates. 

 Some are as old as the time of Solomon ; others, 

 such as the histories of Elijah and Elisha, must 

 be among the latest. The spirit of the work is 

 theocratico-propJietic in a high degree. The com- 

 piler of Chronicles goes over much the same 

 ground, and refers in the same way to the sources 

 from which he drew, but he is not so genuinely 

 historical, and the Levitical tendency is strong. 

 The work is essentially ecclesiastical; 'the priests 

 are everywhere in the foreground, the prophets 

 in the distance. 3 The history is brought down 

 to the close of the Exile, but the genealogical 

 register (i Chron. iii. 19-24) carries us on to 

 the 4th or 3d century B.C. ; and the orthog- 

 raphy, style, and language are very late, and 

 very impure. Ezra is mainly the composition 

 of the Chronist, and Nehemiah partly the work 

 of Nehemiah himself, and partly of the Chronist. 

 Esther belongs to the times of the Seleucidae and 

 Ptolemies, and is marked by the absence both of 

 a religious and a theocratic spirit. The work 

 is even held by some to be a translation from 

 the Persian. The Jews are spoken of in the third 

 person. Mordecai is ' Mordecai, the Jew ' (ii. 5). { 

 God is not once mentioned. Job is a great ' 

 dramatic poem with elaborate rhythmical forms. 

 The prologue, epilogue, and the passage con- 

 taining the speeches of Elihu (xxxii.-xxxvii.), are 

 held by many to be by a different hand from the 

 body of the main poem. Even that cannot be 

 earlier than the time of Solomon, on account of 

 the reference to the gold of Ophir (xxii. 24), and 

 few critics consider it older than the 7th or 8th 

 century B.C. Indeed, the whole language is so 

 highly artificial, as well as artistic, that it could 

 only have been composed in a cultivated age of 

 Hebrew history. The author was a Hebrew 

 of large and catholic spirit, on whom the mystery 

 of existence and the evils of life pressed heavily, 

 but who was sustained by a noble faith in the 

 righteousness of God. The characters are con- 

 sidered mostly imaginative creations, but the 

 central figure, Job himself, may be a historic 

 personage, ideally treated, like the Hamlet of, 

 Shakspeare. The collection of pious lyrics known 

 as the Psalms was probably made shortly after 

 the return from the Captivity. They are of vari- 

 ous ages, from the time of Moses down to j 

 Nehemiah, and contain the quintessence of the 



388 



national religion and ethics. The language bears 

 i distinct traces of the different periods, and of 

 the different characters and dispositions of the 

 authors. Every emotion finds expression, from 

 the pure, deep, tender trust in God, manifested by 

 the hunted outlaw of the wilderness (Ps. xxiii.), to 

 the vengeful passion of the outraged exile who 

 exulted in the hope that the brains of Babylonian 

 infants would yet be dashed against the stones 

 (Ps. cxxxvii.). Proverbs is also a collection ' an 

 anthology of gnomes and sentences, the fruit of 

 reflections on the Mosaic law, and on the divine 

 guidance of the Israelites.' Internal evidence is 

 unfavourable to the theory of its Solomonian 

 authorship. Diction and style differ in different 

 parts. Some of the sayings are likely enough 

 those of the royal sage, but parts of the work are 

 not older than the 6th century B.C. Ecclesiastes 

 could not have been written by Solomon, or he 

 would not have said, ' I was king over Israel in 

 Jerusalem' (i. 12) ; the social condition of the 

 country as described in the work does not suit the 

 reign of that monarch ; the language is post- 

 exilian. It most resembles that of Esther and 

 Daniel, and is probably a composition of the 4th 

 century B.C., when Judea presented a gloomy 

 aspect, and men were becoming sceptical in spite 

 of their religion. The work is not hopeful, but 

 contains many fine passages breathing a spirit 

 of pious resignation. The Song of Solomon is 

 not the work of the king himself, but is held to 

 belong to the next age. Its mystic or allegoric 

 character is a Jewish theory to explain or apolo- 

 gise for its reception into the canon. Its applica- 

 tion to the spiritual relation between Christ and 

 the Church seems to most modern interpreters to 

 be far fetched. 



The prophetical writings constitute a special 

 department of Hebrew literature, the interpreta- 

 tion of which is one of the most delicate and 

 difficult operations of criticism. The once uni- 

 versal belief was that their authors were not only 

 infallibly guided by God, but inspired, word by 

 word, to address their countrymen in regard to 

 things present and to come ; so that when the 

 phrase occurs, ' Thus saith the Lord,' or, ' The 

 word of the Lord came unto me,' it was to be under- 

 stood that the Lord actually used, or constrained 

 the prophet to use, the language which follows. 

 Many Biblical scholars, on the other hand, content 

 themselves with the view that the prophets were 

 men who were intensely and even passionately 

 sincere, and to whom distrust of the Eternal, or 

 worldliness, or disloyalty to the national faith, or 

 any other form of hollowness, was supremely 

 hateful. They accordingly do not search for 

 precise dogmas and circumstantial facts in those 

 thoughts that breathe, and words that burn ; they 

 neither demand minute accuracy from fiery ora- 

 tors, nor hazard the character of the writers on 

 the fulfilment of specific predictions. Above 

 all, the newer view of prophecy, common to 

 almost all modern expositors, declines to hold as 

 was once universally held that the most import- 

 ant element of prophecy lies in prediction. It is 

 admitted that the prophecies, which in their 

 written form are probably much abridged, were 

 addressed to the prophets' contemporaries, not to 

 future ages, and consist for the most part of 

 rebukes and warnings against sins then common, 

 of exhortations to acknowledged duty, and of 





