329. The Elohist, then, represents | instances, of which we shall have to this name 'Jehovah' as having been take account hereafter? first announced to Moses and the Israelites at the time of the Exodus. And he carefully avoids using it in all the foregoing part of the story from Adam downwards, through the times of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, to that of Moses. The Jehovist uses it freely all along. And, without giving any account of its first introduction, he puts it in the mouth of Eve, G.iv.1, and remarks incidentally that, as early as the time of Enos, men began to call upon the Name of Jehovah,' G.iv.26. 330. The question now to be considered is, which of these two writers gives the true account, or, rather, is either statement correct? Does not the very existence of this discrepancy suggest the probability of neither version of the story being the right one? May it not be possible that the Elohist wrote at a time when the word was new,-when it had only been recently introduced, as the national Personal Name for the Divine Being, with the view of drawing more distinctly the line of demarcation between the people of Israel,-now first gathered under a king, and no longer living in scattered, separate, tribes,-and the idolatrous nations round them? 331. May not the Elohistic writer, wishing to enforce the adoption of this Name, have composed for the purpose this portion of the Mosaic story, while the later Jehovist, writing when the Name, though not, perhaps, even yet in common every-day use, was beginning to be more generally known, and was, at all events, familiar to himself, uses it freely from the first? And may not these later passages have been blended into one with the original narrative, either by the Jehovist himself, if he was merely an interpolator, or by some later editor, if the Jehovist was an independent writer, without its being perceived, or, at least, without its being felt very strongly, that a contradiction was thereby imported into the narrative, as, in fact, it was not perceived that Gii contradicted G.i, and that G.vii contradicted G.vi, and so in many other 332. In suggesting this, we assume, of course, that, from what we have already seen of the unhistorical character, generally, of the account of the Exodus, it is no longer necessary to believe that the name Jehovah really originated in the way described in E.vi. Yet it must have originated in some way, at some time or other, in the real history of the Hebrew people, just as the Zulu Name for the Creator, Unkulunkulu, the Great-Great-One,' must have been first used by some deep-thinking person in some part or other of their past history. Is it not possible, then, that the Name Jehovah may have been first employed by such a man as SAMUEL, in order to mark more distinctly the difference between the Elohim of the Hebrews and the Elohim of the nations round them, and make it more difficult for them to fall away to the practice of idolatry? 333. Certainly, it would be much more easy and natural to suppose, if that were supported by the actual evidence in the case before us, that SAMUEL, or whoever else composed the Elohistic document, found the Name already in use among his people, and with some legendary traditions attached to it, as to the way in which it was first made known to them by Moses, during their march through the wilderness. If it were right to wish any fact of history to be other than it really is, one would rather desire such a solution of the present difficulty, and gladly embrace it. But a firm and honest adherence to the results of critical enquiry, as set forth in the following chapters, does not, in our judgment, allow of our making this supposition. They seem to compel us to the conclusion, that the Name was really new to the Hebrew people in the days of Samuel; and, if so, we can scarcely avoid the inference that he himself must have first adopted it. 334. In that case, he may have written the account of the revelation to Moses in E.vi, with the view of accounting for the origin of the Name, and may have carefully abstained from using it in his narrative. until it was 337. Should it further appear, as I believe it will, that there is very little in the Pentateuch after E.vi which really belongs to the Elohist, who seems to have either brought his story to a close very abruptly, or to have left it, towards the conclusion, in a very imperfect and defective state, there would have been the less reason for this second writer to have considered it incumbent on him to adhere strictly to the plan of the Elohist. He may, therefore, have determined altogether to abandon it in his own composition, and to represent the name Jehovah, as used commonly among men from the days of Enos downwards. thus, as it were, introduced with autho- | as this, accustomed from his youth uprity. We may conceive that the sheets wards, as one of Samuel's pupils, to use of parchment or papyrus, on which the habitually, in his common discourse, the old Seer had inscribed, as best he could, name Jehovah, as the Proper Name of the early annals of the Hebrew history, the God of Israel, might not adhere to were left at his death,-unfinished, pro- this peculiarity of the earlier narrative, bably,-in the hands of the members of but might use the name Jehovah freely his School,' for whose instruction, in from the first, and might, indeed, desire, fact, they were, as we suppose, com- or think it best, to represent it as a posed in the first instance, though their Name known to pious worshippers from Teacher's large and patriotic mind would a very early age. embrace, no doubt, the whole population of the land, whom he hoped gradually to reach by means of their influence. 335. This unfinished work, then, would fall naturally, after the Seer's death, into the custody of some disciple of Samuel, one of the 'Prophets' of his 'School,' such, for instance, as Nathan or Gad,-not exactly, therefore, a contemporary of the Seer, so as to have shared in his counsels from the first, and to have taken a deep personal interest in the original plan,—and, yet living at a time so near to his time, that the Name, Jehovah, though wellknown to those of higher mind, such as David and the Prophets and Priests of his age, was not yet thoroughly popularised, was not, therefore, used as familiarly as the old name Elohim, in the common speech of the people at large, nor compounded freely in their Proper Names. And he, who had already, perhaps, witnessed the actual growth of the history under his master's hands, and had imbibed, we may suppose, some portion of his spirit, might very properly seek to carry on and perfect so interesting and useful a work; he might even have been charged by the dying Seer himself to do so. 336. Accordingly, he may have done his best to this end, either by writing a separate narrative, which at first existed in an independent form, but was incorporated by a later editor with the Elohistic document, or by directly interpolating the original story, making additions here and there from any sources at his command, illustrating, amending, enlarging, and, perhaps, at times abridging it, and filling up the latter portion of the narrative, which was left, perhaps, altogether incomplete. Such a writer 338. In that case, however, and supposing that he did not compose an original, independent, narrative, but wrote only to supplement the primary story, he must have retained deliberately the grand Elohistic chapter, E.vi, as too interesting and important to be omitted in the story of the Exodus, though aware of the inconsistency thus occasioned, or, it may be, as above suggested, because he did not feel very strongly the contradiction thus involved, any more than those which exist between his own accounts of the Creation and the Flood, and those of his predecessor. And so there are multitudes of devout and thoughtful readers, who have studied the Bible closely in our own days, without perceiving these obvious discrepancies. 339. It would be very natural, however, for a writer such as this, upon first introducing the Name Jehovah into the story,-a Name, as we suppose, not yet thoroughly popularised, to couple it with the familiar Name Elohim, so making the transition, as it were, more easy. In this way, perhaps, we may ac I count for the fact that in G.ii.4-iii.24, the first Jehovistic section of the Bible, the Name Jehovah' occurs twenty times, and always in the form 'Jehovah Elohim,' LORD GOD,-not Jehovah' only, as in the subsequent section, which, however, as will be shewn hereafter, is due to the same writer. 340. This circumstance also rather tends to confirm the idea, that the writer composed it at a time, when the Name, though already familiar to himself, was not yet universally employed, and that he wished in this way to commend it to popular acceptance, instead of merely adopting it as a word already common in the mouths of the people. In like manner, the Zulus can speak of the Unkulunkulu of this, or that, person, or people. In the Church of England Missions, however, the word uDio has been introduced for the Name of God, as specially set forth in Christian teaching. And it is not uncommon for a missionary to join the two together, in speaking to the natives, in the form uDio-Nkulunkulu. CHAPTER XI. THE ELOHISTIC PSALMS OF DAVID. the Pentateuch, and Book of Joshua, 342. LET it first be observed that, in claimed, it appears constantly in every so soon as the Name Jehovah is propage as the ruling Name, the word habitually and most commonly emThis ployed for the Divine Being. Judges, Ruth, Samuel, and Kings. continues also through the books of The Name Elohim is also used, but far more frequently the Name Jehovah. each book gives the following result, reckoning only those instances in which the True God, and not to human beings the Name El or Elohim is applied to or idols. 341. At present, however, the suggestions, which we have made above, are only conjectural, except to this ex-In tent, that 343. Thus a careful examination of Jo. ii.9-12, the Name Jehovah is In (i) We have seen reason already to put four times into the mouth of the Canaanitish harlot, Rahab. conclude with certainty (240) that N.xxii-xxiv it occurs twelve times in large portions, at least, of the story of the addresses of the heathen prophet, Balaam, and Elohim only eleven times; nay, he is actually made to say,— the Exodus must have been written long after the time of Moses and Joshua, whatever relics of that earlier age may still, perhaps, be retained in the narrative; (ii) We can scarcely doubt that the age of Samuel is the earliest age, after the time of the Exodus, at which such a history can be conceived to have been written; (iii) We have observed some indications (234), which seem to point to the age of Samuel, as the time at which some portions of the Pentateuch may have been written; (iv) We have reason to believe (276) that Samuel and his pupils did actually employ themselves in historical compo sition. Let us now see if we can bring any proofs to bear more directly on this question. 'I cannot go beyond the word of Jehovah, my God,' N.xxii.18. 344. Thus it cannot be doubted that the story, as told in the Pentateuch and all the other historical books, represents the Name Jehovah as being far more common in the mouth of the people generally than the Name Elohim, all along downwards, from the time of its being announced as the special Name, by which the God of Israel would be known to His people. 345. If, then, we have any means of testing independently the truth of this representation, we shall thus have light thrown, from an entirely new quarter, upon the question now before us, as to the historical veracity of the Books of the Pentateuch. If we find, upon cer tain evidence, that the Name Jehovah | part of his life, in which it was, most was thus habitually employed by men, probably, written. who, beyond all doubt, lived and wrote within the period embraced by these Books, we shall have so far an agreement with the Mosaic story, that there is here no contradiction to it, though, in face of the evidence, already produced, of the unhistorical character of the narrative, even such an agreement as this would not, of course, avail to establish its historical veracity. 346. But if, on the other hand, we find the exact contrary,-if we find that, so far from the Name Jehovah being habitually used, it was used very rarely, much less freely than Elohim, and often not at all, by most eminent writers, who must have been familiar with the Name, and must have used it, if it was really common in their days, we shall have here a direct and palpable contradiction to the intimations of the Mosaic Books, and a strong independent proof, in addition to what we have observed already, of the unhistorical character of the Mosaic story. 347. Let us examine, then, for this purpose, the Book of Psalms, and those Psalms especially, in the first instance, which appear by their titles to have been written in the earlier part of David's life. And let us see if David makes use of the Name Jehovah, as freely as we should expect him to use it, from what we find in the Pentateuch, --as freely as he must have used it, if the word was in common use in his days, and believed to have had set upon it the seal, as it were, of Jehovah Himself, as the Name by which He would be known as the Covenant God of Israel. It is true that the titles of the Psalms may be-and most probably are in many cases, of much later date than the Psalms themselves, and are not to be depended on, when unsupported by internal evidence of their truthfulness. But the contents of a Psalm will sometimes confirm the statement in the title, as to the occasion on which it was composed, and be sufficient to satisfy us both as to its having been written by David, or, at least, in David's lifetime, and as to the 348. Of the hundred and fifty Psalms contained in the Bible, nearly half, viz. seventy-three, are, by their titles attributed to David in the Hebrew text, while the LXX assign eleven others to him. Of the above seventy-three, fourteen have inscriptions which specify the event in David's life, with reference to which the Psalm was composed. Eight of these inscriptions refer to events in his earlier years, before he was king. 349. Of these eight, six, when examined, give the following results : (i) In Ps.lii, when Doeg, the Edomite, came and told Saul, and said unto him, David Elohim five times, Jehovah not once. is come to the house of Ahimelech,' we have (ii) In Ps.liv, when the Ziphims came and said to Saul, doth not David hide himself with us?' we have Elohim four times, Adonai (Lord) once, Jehovah (LORD) once. (iii) In Ps.lvi, when the Philistines took David in Gath,' at the court of Achish, we have Elohim nine times, Jehovah once. in the cave,' we have Elohim seven times, Lord once, Jehovah not once. (iv) In Ps.lvii, when David fled from Saul (v) In Ps.lix, when 'Saul sent, and they watched the house to kill him,' we have Elohim nine times, Lord once, Jehovah three times. But, in this Psalm, the expression in ".11, Slay them not, lest my people forget it,' at the time, and, therefore, that, if written would seem to imply that the writer was king by David at all, it was composed at a later date than that which the title ascribes to it. wilderness of Judah,' we have Elohim three (vi) In Ps.lxiii, when David was in the times, Jehovah not once. 350. The above are all the Psalms ascribed to David (with two exceptions, Ps.xxxiv, Ps.cxliii, to be considered presently), whose early age is distinctly intimated in their titles; and in each instance we see a phenomenon the very opposite to that, which the Pentateuch and other historical books would lead us to expect. And let it be observed that this is true, supposing that these Psalms were really written by David, whether he wrote them on the occasions mentioned in the titles, or not, and even if they were not written by David at all, but by some other person of that age. But, if the titles can be relied on, (as some writers so strenuously maintain), it would follow from this that in David's earlier days, at a time when he was in close intimacy with the venerable Prophet Samuel, with whom, we are told, he stayed some time at Ramah, 1S.xix.18, while a fugitive from Saul, and when he must, doubtless, have mingled with the Prophets of Samuel's School,' have heard their sacred hymns, and taken part in their religious services,-though he knew the Name Jehovah, yet he was certainly not in the habit of using it freely; he either used it not at all in his compositions, or used it very sparingly, as if he was only now beginning to use it, as if it was somewhat new and strange to him as yet, not so frequent on his lips, not so familiar to his thoughts, as the old and well-known name, Elohim. 351. It is surely inconceivable that a man, so eminently pious as David, should, during a large portion of his life. have been writing a number of Psalms, in which this Name Jehovah is hardly ever employed, if the story of the giving of the Name is really true, if it was known to David that this Name was first revealed to Moses by the Lord Himself, and had the special sanction and approval of Almighty God, as the name by which He chose to be addressed, the proper Name of the God of Israel, This is my Name for ever, and this is my memorial unto all generations,' E.iii. 15. It can hardly be believed that either he, or any other good man of those days, could have done this, if the Name was so common in the mouths of all pious and devout men,-even of heathen persons, in his own and all the postMosaic ages, as the history represents. 352. But the Psalms, above instanced, are by no means the only cases in which the same phenomenon occurs, among the Psalms ascribed to David. For, if we examine carefully all the thirty-one Psalms of the Second Book (216), Ps.xli to Ps.lxxii, of which eighteen, marked below with an asterisk, are ascribed to David, we shall have the following very noticeable result: 353. The eighteen Psalms, which are here ascribed to David, include the six which we have just been considering, and which were written, as we have seen, (supposing their titles to be correct), at an early period of his life, when, in fact, he was not yet thirty years old. They include, also, three from the middle part of his life,-Ps.lx (E.5,J.0), when Joab returned, and smote of Edom in the valley of salt, twelve thousand men,' in the forty-fifth year of David's life,-Ps.li (E.6,J.0), after his adultery with Bathsheba, in the fiftieth year, and Ps.lxxii. (E.3.J.1)— or, rather (E.1,J.0), since v. 18,19, are merely the doxology (216), added by the compiler in later days, to serve as a close to Book II of the Psalms,-which is entitled 'A prayer for Solomon,' and, if written by David, may have been composed by him shortly after Solomon's birth, in the fifty-first or fifty-second year of his life. 354. Looking now at the above table, is it conceivable that David should have written the above eighteen Psalms, or any number of them,-in which the name Elohim occurs, on the average, nine of which Jehovah does not occur seven times to Jehovah once, and in at all, if the latter name was used so freely, so much more freely than Elohim, and under such high sanction, in the common language of the people when he wrote, as the historical books Psalm in this Book shows the same with one voice imply? Nay, every characteristic preference for the word Elohim. And, supposing as we naall or most of them are Psalms of about turally may before further inquiry, that the same age, as they are found in the same collection, and that age the age of David, as the titles of so many of them imply, it is obvious that the force of the above argument is just as strong, whether such Psalms were really written by David, or by any other pious writer of those days. |