sober relation of the crossing of Jordan and taking of Jericho and Ai, whereupon follows the league with the Gibeonites and 'resultant battle and victory at Gibeon, Joshua and all Israel returning to Gilgal. The poetic excerpt from the "Book of Jashar" is well known. Central Palestine is now open, but "Joshua was old and well-stricken in years." The as yet unconquered territory is therefore allotted to the tribes, and from "the city of Palm-trees" (Jericho) the historian traces the gradual acquisition by the tribes first of a foothold, then a firm settlement, in their several territories.

In Judges J relates the varying fortunes of the tribes in their struggle against the unsubdued Canaanites. A great victory by a coalition of the northern tribes under Deborah and Barak against the Canaanite confederacy of Jabin secures control of northern Palestine and is celebrated in one more priceless national ode. The traditions of Dan and Benjamin lead over to the story of Saul and the war of deliverance from the Philistine yoke.

In the story of the rise of the monarchy we have our first introduction in J to a prophet. The heroic Benjaminite Saul in search of his father's asses turns aside to enquire of a soothsayer of local repute where he should look. A sixpence is the price of the augury, and a parenthetic note (probably a gloss) explains that he that is called in the narrative "a seer, is now called a prophet." But a divine message is given to Saul by "Samuel the seer," and thus forewarned he rallies discouraged Israel to the relief of beleaguered Jabesh, leads against Ammon, and is crowned by the victors on the field. Now Saul and Jonathan move Israel to throw off the Philistine yoke and ultimately drive the oppressor from the country. Pathetically beautiful is the story of Saul and his still nobler son; but with the appearance of the Judean minstrel-warrior David, and the immortal friendship of Jonathan, a new interest takes its place. Saul's insane jealousy drives David into exile and culminates in the monstrous crime of attempted annihilation of the priests of Yahweh. With the escape to David of Ahimelech the sole survivor, carrying the supreme emblem of the divine presence, the sacred ephod, the national cause passes over to David, as

doubtless did in large part the interest of the nation. Finally the fearful catastrophe of the battle of Gilboa and annihilation of Saul's dynasty is celebrated by our author in an authentic elegy written by the warrior poet David himself, and here excerpted from the "Book of Jashar."

II Samuel describes first the assumption of the crown by David at Hebron and crushing of the house of Saul, then the retrieving of the terrible defeat of Gilboa against the Philistines, the conquest of Jerusalem and bringing up of the ark of Yahweh to a permanent abode in David's capital; then, after the firm establishment of national independence and sovereignty, the acquisition of the floor of Araunah the Jebusite, indicated by a theophany as the true site for the national sanctuary.* An unsparing review of the weakness of David's domestic administration and the calamities brought thereby upon Israel occupies the latter part of the book, but exhibits at once the righteous government of Yahweh, and the true greatness of David's character, for he comes out of the furnace of affliction humbled, submissive, grateful.

After the accession of Solomon and a description of his munificence, the narrative passes to the epoch-making event of the building and dedication of the temple drawing once more from its source the Book of Jashar an extract from the Dedicatory Prayer of Solomon. The subsequent calamitous history is related very briefly, but we find in I Kgs. xvi. 34 the sequel to J's story of the destruction of Jericho in Jos. vi. 26f. and in chh. xx.-xxii. a record of the reign of Ahab, including a version of his relation to Elijah the Tishbite, which contrasts with that of chh. xvii.-xix. almost as the Samuel of J does with the Samuel of E; its sequel appears in II Kgs. (iii?) viii. 16ff., where the fulfilment of Gen. xxvii. 40 (J?) is related, and in a "photographic narrative" strongly recalling the style of the Books of Samuel (cf. Elisha in ch. ix. with Samuel in I Sam. ixf., and the gate scene, ix. 17-20, with II Sam. xiii. 34–36; xviii. 24-32), on account of the great revolution

* II Sam. xxiv. is displaced.

of Jehu in Ephraim, with its after-clap in the overthrow of Athaliah in Judah. The story apparently closes with the repairing of the temple under Jehoash during the years that "Jehoiada the priest instructed him."

The belief that the narrative of J extended down so late as II Kgs. xii. is as yet but a personal conviction, based on perhaps inadequate grounds; but it is traceable with practical certainty to the dedication of the temple, and is traced by Cornill and others with great probability as far as I Kgs. xvi. 34. If now we look for such a great national movement as might naturally give birth to a masterpiece of the kind, there is no epoch comparable in appropriateness with that which ensued upon the great Yahwistic revolution, the seed whereof was sown by the great Ephraimite prophets of the school of Elijah, though in Judah it was carried through under the leadership of the head of the Jerusalem priesthood. On the other hand it is certain that the story of J1 did not continue much beyond the year 800, for the work was, perhaps, already known to Amos (cf. ii. 10), and almost certainly to Hosea.

In fixing the contents of the two great preëxilic documents we have thus determined within tolerably close limits their probable dates, and found them to coincide with those determined on independent grounds before the completion of this analysis. The post-exilic origin of P was made sufficiently clear in the preceding volume. The questions we have now to ask, as to the character, purpose and authorship of the three, must needs have received already some degree of illumination from this review of their subject matter.

The comprehensive view thus afforded of each of the great historical documents of the Old Testament, when documentary analysis has completed its work, should serve a higher purpose than the mere enumeration of minor idiosyncrasies of the writers, favorite phrases, modes of expression, peculiarities of style and diction. In the standard critical works of Dillmann (Appendix to Nu. Dt. Jos. p. 592–690) or Wellhausen (Comp. passim.) the reader will find these criteria described at length. But the lists most convenient of access to the English reader

6

are those of Kuenen (Hex. p. 65-158) and of Driver ("Introd. to O. T. Lit.", N. Y., 1891, p. 109-150).* In the present volume it is expected that the references and the diacritical marks of Part II. will enable the reader to judge for himself as to J's partiality for the phrases 'find favor in the eyes of,' 'land flowing with milk and honey,' break forth,' 'ground,' 'Lord,' (adonai) etc., his specification of the time of day, and similar idiosyncrasies; E's form of address, use of 'Jethro' for Hobab,' Horeb for Sinai,' 'Amorite' for 'Canaanite,' ‘amah' (“ maid”), for 'shiphchah' (“maid"), 'mount of God,' 'rod of God,'' angel of God,'' rose up early in the morning,' and the like; and that above all he cannot fail to secure some impression from the innumerable peculiarities and conventional forms of P, however hasty his perusal. But these are not results of criticism; these are the mere tools of documentary analysis. If a new definition of the higher criticism may be permitted so late, we should call it the study of the origin and development of ideas. The ideas of J, E and P are more important than their phrases, and to understand them and their implications we must trace their history.

Even in J, whose work is far less dominated by theory even than E,† and of course than P, we have not the work of a mere annalist; had it been so, the work would never have become the substratum of a Bible. History is here made the vehicle of an idea; a very broad and simple one, but admirably

* The discussion of the documents does not look beyond the Hexateuch, and is largely taken from Dillmann's Appendix referred to above.

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† It is surprising that so careful and judicious a scholar as Driver should write (“ Introd.” p. 111): “It [the prophetical standpoint of E] is not brought so prominently forward as in J, and in general the narrative is more objective," less consciously tinged by ethical and theological reflection than that of J." This complete reversal of the true relation would be unaccountable, were it not that Driver's caution leads him to confine his view almost exclusively to the inconclusive phenomena of Genesis, and to depend too much on Dillmann. It should be remembered that pp. 629ff. of Dillmann's Nu. Dt. Jos. were written as a determined effort to support the now almost abandoned theory of the priority of E and P and late date of J. Schrader is far more felicitous in calling E "the Theocratic Narrator."

carried out.

That idea is

Yahweh's righteous government of the

world is manifested in the story of his chosen people.

In E, and still more in P, the narrative of Israel is decidedly subordinated to a purpose of tracing the history of special institutions, but in J the nation itself, with all its institutions, and as a whole, is the object of supreme interest; it may properly be called a HISTORY OF THE COVENANT PEOPLE OF YAHWEH. For precisely the same reason that E takes delight in relating the birth and parentage, youth and development of his great prophetic characters; whereas, once their rôle in the national history is about to begin, he subordinates the nation's career to the individual's, or even passes it over entirely, J follows a course exactly the opposite. Instead of beginning with the call of "the prophet Abraham," he begins with the remotest antecedents of the Hebrew stock, employs the cosmogonic myths to locate its true position in the world's history, and primitive ethnology in the form of discursive genealogies to determine its affinity with all surrounding peoples. Because J is supremely interested in the career of the nation, his great characters are introduced when their rôle affects the national destinies, and to this extent only. He brings in Moses, Joshua, Samuel, David, in every case in full maturity, without troubling himself about their birth and childhood or pious education; their careers are only episodes in the great national drama. For the same reason archaeological data of even a purely secular character, if they have a bearing upon the history of Israel, are welcome to J. The origin of the arts and industries concerns him; he is ready to take up aetiological folk-tales accounting for all sorts of practises, customs, localities and beliefs; he does not refuse room even to the repulsive legend of Moab and Ammon, the superstitious association of the mandragora with the birth of Rachel's children, or the coarse clan-legends of the stocks of Judah. On the other hand he is not unnaturally led by the literary beauty of such idylls as the marriage of Isaac and Rebecca and the popular humor of Jacob's shepherd tricks to give them otherwise disproportionate space.