nomenclature: in it the name Desert of Paran' current in the Book of Origins,' is wholly unknown; and it is only through an easily discernible alteration that the name Kadesh,2 a favourite in that Book, has been admitted into ver. 36 sq. of the catalogue.

It is certain then, that the author of the Book of Origins made this very ancient catalogue, Num. xxxiii, the basis of his enlarged narrative; and yet it is surprising that not nearly all the forty stations therein enumerated, are separately named by him during its course. We might easily account for this circumstance by the supposition that all the encampments were originally mentioned in the Book of Origins, each in its own place, without omitting one; and that a later reviser had left out those now missing. That many names may really have been lost in that revision, cannot well be denied, considering its general character as described at p. 113 sqq.; just as many links must likewise have dropt from the chain of the chronology of these forty years. Nevertheless, when we reflect that the author of the Book of Origins clearly allowed himself some freedom in the use of this document, and that the eighteen camp-stations, which are wanting in Num. xii. 16, are given by him in the final summary in Num. xxxiii. without any parenthetical observations, of which in general he is not sparing: we feel more inclined to the view, that he is himself responsible for the chief omission, that of the eighteen encampments, and hurries the narrative over that break with so slight a hitch, only because he was without any clearer or more complete tradition respecting that section of the wanderings. Hence arises a fresh argument for the high antiquity of the catalogue in Num. xxxiii., as well as for the expediency of at any rate introducing it in full at the close of the detailed narrative.

4

But this important catalogue, Num. xxxiii, was not the only one of its kind. We find elsewhere some small fragments in a different style; and the list of seven camp-stations in Num.

5

1 Num. x. 12, xii. 16, xiii. 3, 26, comp. Gen. xxi. 21.

2 Num. xiii. 26, xx. 1, 22, comp. xxxiv. 4; Deut. xxxii. 51.

In the detailed account we find several encampments omitted; as the Red Sea for the 7th encampment, ver. 10, comp. Ex. xvi. 1; then the 9th and 10th, ver. 12 sq., comp. Ex. xvii. 1; the 15th to the 23d, for all which the writer has apparently intentionally substituted the great desert of Paran or Kadesh, Num. xi. 35, xii. 16, xiii. 3, 26 (comp. xx. 1, where however Kadesh is treated as identical

with the desert of Zin); also the 35th and 36th encampments, ver. 41 sq., comp. Num. xxi. 4, 10; and lastly the 39th to the 41st, ver. 45-47 (instead of which Num. xxi. 12-20 mentions encampments differing at least in name); whereas the last encampment, ver. 48 sq. does recur in Num. xxi. 1, comp. xv. 1.

E. g. in this, that he, as already shown, in Num. x-xiii. and especially xii. 16, gives the general name 'the Desert of Paran,' instead of other more specific names.

In Deut. x. 6 sq. a fragment of a similar catalogue is inserted, which, al

xxi. 12-20 is very different from Num. xxxiii. These seven must correspond to the three specified in Num. xxxiii. 45-47; but even the names as well as the numbers are quite different. The very tone of the description itself is changed from the eleventh verse; it is itself conciser, but (according to ver. 14) borrows from an older and apparently more poetical work many detailed descriptions of places in ver. 14 sq. and ver. 20 (see p. 67 sq.) We can readily understand the possibility of different statements respecting the camp-stations. The forty-two mentioned in the complete list in Num. xxxiii. were to all appearance only the principal stations, where the Ark of the Covenant took up a fixed position in the centre of the wide-spread camp for some time, and frequently after a journey of several days.' It was therefore easy to reckon up other encampments where the people had remained for a shorter time; or, from the great extent of the whole camp, more than one name might be given to the same encampment by the people themselves-not to mention that many wide tracts have several names; and in fact we do elsewhere find names of places where the people halted by reason of some event, which are not recorded in Num. xxxiii.2 But, granting all these possibilities, the conclusion only acquires greater force, that the fragment on the seven camp-stations in Num. xxi. 12-20 belonged to another catalogue, also extremely ancient, but widely different in details. It is of the greatest importance to us, however, that we are still able to discover such ancient documents of strictly historical contents and value. We will not and cannot affirm that these catalogues were kept during the journey, or written down at once during its last year; but at a much later period they cannot have been attempted.

3. With respect to the narratives themselves, the first thing which forces itself on our notice is, that notwithstanding their riches in many parts, derived often from quite different sources, they still contain many gaps which cannot escape an attentive

though on the whole agreeing with Num. xxxiii. 31-33, nevertheless diverges so far from it in the form of the local names (sometimes indeed only in the punctuation 7 and 7), in the order of the resting places, and especially in the casual mention of the place of Aaron's death,

that it must be derived from a distinct and independent source; and from an equally divergent authority is most likely derived the statement in Deut. ii. 13 sq. respecting the encampment at the brook Zared, comp. Num. xxi. 12.

The expression after three days journey' which often occurs, Num. xxxiii. 8, x. 33; Ex. xv. 22, comp. Ex. iii. 18 sq.; Gen. xxx. 36 and xxii. 4, is seen by its frequent repetition to be a round number, almost as much as a seven days' journey used in a somewhat different sense in Gen. xxxi. 23, 2 Kings iii. 9.

2 As Merîba and Massa, Num. xx. 13, 24; Ex. xvii. 7; Taberah Num. xi. 3; apparently introduced like all these encampments not mentioned in Num. xxxiii. from the earliest historical work.

observation. These losses and defects may be in part original, such as even the earliest historian was unable to supply and fill up. For we have no reason to think that the contemporaries or immediate successors of Moses wrote his history at great length; on the contrary, we have just seen in the important case of the eighteen camp-stations which even the Book of Origins treats as a blank, how soon certain links of the remote history were dimmed in the memory. But other omissions (and this is to us more extraordinary) can only be accounted for by the superfluity of written narratives which later revisers pruned away, and by the manifold variety and diversity of matter, which later compilers felt called upon to simplify. Thus the Fifth Narrator has introduced breaks into the chronology. We sometimes find a certain Hur' mentioned together with Aaron, and as his equal, but we possess no other trace of him. We perceive that he must have played an important part in the fuller traditions; moreover he is mentioned quite briefly and abruptly in those passages as a person as well known as Aaron; and yet in our extant circle of traditions we cannot even trace his genealogy.2 Compare with this the exact description of the pedigree of Aaron and of his four often named sons; and bear in mind that the primitive account above all could not have introduced a man of such importance in so perfectly incidental and obscure a manner; and then it will be granted that the written accounts from which the Fifth Narrator takes his mention of this man must have spoken of him much more in detail. The following may serve as another example. The father-in-law of Moses, first mentioned in Ex. ii., must, from all the traces we can discover, have been one of the most important characters connected with the history of Moses; but how fragmentary and sometimes contradictory are the extant short accounts of him! According to the Book of Origins he was called Hobab son of Raguel, but according to the still earlier narrator, Jethro; and this name is adopted also by the Third and Fifth Narrators." That Moses did not take his

3

Ex. xvii. 10, 12, and xxiv. 14.

6

2 It is by mere guess-work that the later Jews called him the husband of Miriam; but even Josephus, Ant. iii. 2. 4, 6. 1, regarded the artificer Bezalcel of Judah, mentioned in Ex. xxxi. 2, xxxv. 30, xxxviii. 22, 1 Chr. ii. 20, as Miriam's son or rather grandson, because his grandfather is named Hur.

3 Ex. vi. 20-23.

Ex. ii. sq. iv. 18 sq. xviii.; Num. x.

29-32.

Num. x., comp. Judges iv. 11.

5

4

6 Ex. xviii., comp. iv. 18.

Ex. ii.-iv. In Ex. ii. 18, the words 1 have in my opinion fallen out before ; and this error must have been a very early one; compare the LXX. ver. 16, who present the text more complete. It might be imagined that Hobab was the man's real personal name, and in, which signifies prefect, his title of honour, about equivalent to the Hebrew and the Arabic Imâm. The change between in and n (which occurs once,

wife and children with him into Egypt, although another ancient account says he did,' must have been fully detailed by one of the very earliest Narrators; 2 though in the present state of the narrative this is scarcely discernible now.

As these narratives now stand, we can discover in them three separate groups by different authors, and from very different ages.

1) A small, but in some respects very remarkable, group consists of the scattered fragments of the earliest accounts of the Mosaic times. To these belong the passages enumerated at p. 64 sqq.; and at the same time, many short notices derived from these earliest writings may be interwoven in later narratives. Their distinguishing characteristic is, that in simplicity and accuracy of recollection, as well as in fulness and variety of original matter, they greatly surpass even the Book of Origins, and must therefore be of much earlier date. The incidents and peculiarities of that remote antiquity can nowhere else be so certainly learned as in them, so that there is scarcely any loss of this nature to be more deplored, than that they have not come down to us entire. They give us such accurate information as we find nowhere else respecting the direction of the journey through the desert, and the stations of the camp; they also allow to Jethro a considerable share in the glory of the Mosaic age; they do not restrict the solemn period of instruction and the giving of the law so exclusively to the encampment at Sinai," as is done in the Book of Origins; and, among other more simple conceptions, they exhibit the Divine guidance of the people under Moses, only by the simple and beautiful image of an angel of God going before the host." Moreover the work of the Earliest Narrator comprised probably the beautiful song of praise Ex. xv. 1-21, and certainly the Decalogue, and the ancient attempt at a complete code of law Ex. xx. 22-xxiii. 19, making a slight change in the narrative in the case of the last two; see also p. 64 sqq.

3

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2) By far the largest group appertains to the Book of Origins, the character and age of which is described at p. 74 sqq. To it belongs great part of Exodus, the whole of Leviticus, with the exception of xxvi. 3-45, the chief part of Numbers, and

Deut. xxxii. 48-52, and xxxiv. 1-9. Yet when we regard the contents of this mass of records as they now lie before us, we cannot be surprised (p. 82 sqq.) that they subserve rather the detailed exposition of the Mosaic laws and institutions than the proper history of the events of the Mosaic age. This narrator makes legislation his principal object; even when he speaks of Moses and the events of his life, he seizes every opportunity of explaining the laws, and it is chiefly then that he becomes eloquent and full of detail. He indeed sets all his representations of what he mentions as legislatively handed down from Moses and his time, in a solid historical frame; he even carries out the chronology exactly in details, after his fashion: but nevertheless, being a late writer and having so circumscribed an object, he has necessarily a far more contracted historical horizon than those earliest historians. To him, at all events, Moses is only the lawgiver and leader of the holy congregation, as Aaron is the head of the priestly tribe; and therefore he purposely selects out of a large circle of stories about the Mosaic times those portions only which he can easily render subservient to his object; and makes no other use of several records of memorable events than as occasions for expatiating on legal enactments or certain sacerdotal doctrines. Hence too many original and undoubtedly genuine narratives, as given by him, appear quite disconnected, or are even scarcely intelligible—as for instance, on the punishment of individual transgressors of ordinances.2 Contemplating the whole Mosaic age mainly in relation to the laws and to the blessings accruing from their observance, he uses the far from joyful and elevating memories in which he finds the Mosaic age rich-accounts of the frequent murmurings of the people, or the rebellion of individuals-mainly for the special purpose of showing in eloquent language the dignity of Moses as the leader appointed by Jahve, and the perniciousness of all false desires and transgressions.3 But at the same time he has such an antique simple reverence, not so much for the holy personages as such, as for the great truths

1 Observe, for instance, how many undoubtedly historical names of men belonging to that period, are mentioned by this narrator, and often on apparently very trivial occasions; Ex. xxxi. 2; Lev. x. 4, xxiv. 10 sq.; Num. i. 5 sqq., xiii. 4 sqq.; and then it will be admitted that an abundance of early and very complete traditions must have lain before him. For the most part we are unable to define with any accuracy the nature of these

of the Mosaic age, and so true

authorities, but it would be great folly to deny their existence at the time of our narrator. For a special proof of the historical character of these names, see the section on the name Jahve, infra.

2 Lev. xxiv. 10 sq.; Num. xv. 32; Ex. xvi. 20 sq.; Lev. x. 1 sq.; comp. Num. xvi. 5 sq.

3 Ex. xvi., comp. Num. xi.; Num. xiii. sq.; xvi. sq.; xx. 1-13.