Prolegomena to the History of Israel

by Julius Wellhausen

IX.II.

IX.II.1. I have said that in the L)DH W of Josh. ix. 27, we have the addition of a final priestly revision. Such a revision must be assumed to have taken place, if the Priestly Code is younger than Deuteronomy. But the assumption of its existence does not depend on deduction merely: Kuenen argued for it inductively, even before he became a supporter of Graf's hypothesis. /1/

— Footnote 1. Historisch-Kritisch Onderzoek I. (Leyden, 1861), p. 165; the reviser of the Pentateuch must be sought in the same circles in which the Book of Origins (Q) arose and was gradually extended and modified, i.e., among the priests of Jerusalem, p. 194; it is generally thought that the Deuteronomist is the reviser of the whole Book of Joshua, but his hand is not to be traced everywhere,—not, for example, in the priestly sections; the last reviser is to be distinguished from the Deuteronomist. In certain narratives of Numbers and Joshua, Kuenen detected very considerable additions by the last reviser, and the results of his investigation have now been published in the first part of the second edition of his great isagogic work (Leyden, 1885). — Footnote

This may be best demonstrated by examining the chapters Leviticus xvii.-xxvi. At present they are incorporated in the Priestly Code, having undergone a revision with that view, which in some places adds little, in others a good deal. Viewed, however, as they originally were, they form a work of a peculiar character by themselves, a work pervaded by a somewhat affected religious hortatory tone, which harmonises but little with the Priestly Code. The author worked largely from earlier authorities, which explains, for example, how chapter xviii. and chapter xx. both find a place in his production. Leviticus xvii.-xxvi is incomparably instructive for the knowledge it affords of literary relationships: it is a perfect compendium of the literary history of the Pentateuch. /2/

— Footnote 2. Compare Jahrbb. fur Deutsche Theol., 1877, p. 422-444, especially on the elimination of the additions of the reviser. In the present discussion I shall not take these into account. In chapter xxiii., for example, I only take account of verses 9-22, 39-44, in chapter xxiv. only of vers. 15-22 — Footnote

As with Deuteronomy, so with this legislation; it is clear that it goes back to the Jehovistic legislation of Sinai (Exodus xx.-xxiii.) as its source. It also bears to have been given on Mount Sinai (xxv. 1, xxvi. 46). It is addressed to the people, and is popular in its contents, which are chiefly of a civic and moral character. It is meant only for the promised land and for settled life, not for the wilderness as well. The festivals are three in number, and have not quite parted with their character as feasts of harvest. Among the sacrifices the sin-offering and the trespass-offering are wanting. The legislation does deal with the cultus to a disproportionate extent, but the directions about it do not go into technical details, and are always addressed to the people. Even in those directions which concern the priests the people are addressed, and the priests are spoken of in the third person. Nor are palpable points of contact wanting. Leviticus xix. 2-8, 9-18, may be regarded as counterparts of the first and second tables of the decalogue. The precept, "Thou shalt not respect the person of the poor, nor honour the person of the mighty," xix. 15, is a development of that in Exodus xxiii. 3, and a number of other precepts in Leviticus xix. could stand with equal appropriateness in Exodus xxii. 17 seq. The directions in Leviticus xxii. 27-29 are similar to those of Exodus xxii. 29, xxiii. 18, 19. In the same way those of Leviticus xxiv. 15-22 are based both in contents and form on Exodus xxi. 12. /1/

— Footnote 1. Compare xxiv. 15 seq. with Exodus xxii. 27 (xxi. 17); xxiv. 18 with Exodus xxi. 28 seq.; xxiv. 19, 20 with Exodus xxi. 33, 34; xxiv. 21 with Exodus xxi. 28 seq. — Footnote

In xxiv. 22 we notice a polemical reference to Exodus xxi. 20 seq., 26 seq. In xxv. 1-7 the whole of the expressions of Exodus xxiii. 10, 11 are repeated. In xx. 24, we have the Jehovistic phrase, "a land flowing with milk and honey."

Yet Leviticus xvii.-xxvi. only takes its starting-point from the Jehovistic legislation, and modifies it very considerably, somewhat in the manner of Deuteronomy. There is a demonstrable affinity with Deuteronomy both in the ideas and in the expressions. Common to both is the care for the poor and the undefended: to both humanity is a main object of legislation. "If a stranger sojourn with thee in your land, ye shall not vex him; he shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt" (xix. 34).

Leviticus xvii. seq. attaches great importance to unity of worship. It is still a demand, not a presupposition (xvii. 8 seq., xix. 30, xxvi. 2); the motive of it is to guard against heathen influences and to secure the establishment of a monotheism without images. /2/

— Footnote 2. xvii. 7 (cf. 2Chronicles xi. 15), xviii. 21, xix. 4, 19, 26, 29, 31, xx. 2 seq. 6, xxvi. 1, 30. With regard to the date we have to note the stern prohibition of the service of Moloch. On Lev, xvii. see above, p. 376. — Footnote

This is quite recognisable, and forms an important point of contact with Deuteronomy. The same contact may be observed in the prohibition of certain observances of mourning (xix. 27 seq.), the calculation of Pentecost from the beginning of barley harvest (xxiii. 15), the seven days' duration of the feast of tabernacles, and the cheerful sacrificial feasts which are to accompany its observance. Add to this a similarity by no means slight in the colour of the language, e.g., in xviii. 1-5, 24-30, xix. 33-37, xx. 22 seq., xxv. 35 seq. Some of the phrases may be mentioned. "When ye are come into the land that I shall give you." "Ye shall rejoice before Jehovah." "I am Jehovah that brought you up out of the land of Egypt." "Ye shall keep my commandments and statutes and laws, to do them."

But the legislation we have here is further advanced than Deuteronomy. In the festivals the joint sacrifice of the congregation is already prominent (xxiii. 9-22). The priests are not the Levites, but the sons and brothers of Aaron, their income has grown materially, their separate holiness has reached a higher point. Stricter demands are also made on the laity for personal holiness, especially as regards continence from the sins of the flesh, and the marriage of relatives (Leviticus xviii. xx.). Marriage with an uncle's wife is forbidden (xviii. 14, xx. 20), whereas in Deuteronomy it is still legal. The work dates from a time when exile was a familiar idea: xviii. 26 seq.: "Ye shall keep my statutes and my judgments, and shall not commit any of those abominations; for the men that were in the land before you did these things, and the land vomited them out. Take care that the land spue not you out also as it spued out the nations that were before you." Similarly xx. 23 seq.: and in a legislative work such utterances prove more than they would in a prophecy. Now as our section departs from Deuteronomy, it approaches to Ezekiel. This is its closest relationship, and that to which attention has been most drawn. It appears in the peculiar fusion of cultus and morality, in the notion of holiness, in a somewhat materialistic sense, as the great requirement of religion, and in the fact that the demand of holiness is made to rest on the residence of the people near the sanctuary and in the holy land. /1/

— Footnote 1. On Leviticus xxii. 24, 25, compare Kuenen's Hibbert Lectures. — Footnote

But the affinity is still more striking in the language: many unusual phrases, and even whole sentences, from Ezekiel, are repeated in Leviticus xvii. seq. /2/

— Footnote 2. Compare Colenso, Pentateuch and Joshua, vi. p. 3-23. Kayser, op. cit. p. 177- 179. Smend on Ezekiel, p. xxv. — Footnote

The 10th of the 7th month is in Leviticus xxv. 9 as in Ezekiel, new-year's day, not, as in the Priestly Code, the great day of atonement. This led Graf to regard Ezekiel himself as the author of this collection of laws in Leviticus; and Colenso and Kayser followed him. But this is out of the question; notwithstanding the numerous points of contact both in linguistic and material respects, the agreement is by no means complete. Ezekiel knows no seed of Aaron, and no wine at the sacrifices (Leviticus xxiii. 13); his festival legislation shows considerable differences, and in spirit is more akin to the Priestly Code. And if he were the author he would have said something about the proper place in the cultus of the Levites and of the prince.

The corpus in question, which Klostermann called, not inappropriately, the Law of Holiness, inclines from Ezekiel towards the Priestly Code: in such pieces as xvii. xxi. xxii. it takes some closeness of attention to see the differences from the latter, though in fact they are not inconsiderable. It stands between the two, somewhat nearer, no doubt, to Ezekiel. How are we to regard this fact? Jehovist, Deuteronomy, Ezekiel, are a historical series; Ezekiel, Law of Holiness, Priestly Code, must also be taken as historical steps, and this in such a way as to explain at the same time the dependence of the Law of Holiness on the Jehovist and on Deuteronomy. To assume that Ezekiel, having the Pentateuch in all other respects as we have it, had a great liking for this piece of it, and made it his model in the foundation of his style of thought and expression—such an assumption does not free us from the necessity of seeking the historical order, and of assigning his natural place in that order to Ezekiel; we cannot argue on such a mere chance. Now the question is not a complicated one, whether in the Law of Holiness we are passing from the Priestly Code to Ezekiel or from Ezekiel to the Priestly Code. The Law of Holiness underwent a last revision, which represents, not the views of Ezekiel, but those of the Priestly Code, and by means of which it is incorporated in that code. This revision has not been equally incisive in all parts. Some of its corrections and supplements are very considerable, e.g., xxiii. 1-8, 23-38; xxiv. 1-14, 23. Some of them are quite unimportant, e.g., the importation of the Ohel Moed (instead of the Mikdash or the Mishkan), xvii. 4, 6, 9, xix. 21 seq.; the trespass-offering, xix. 21 seq.; the Kodesh Kodashim, xxi. 22. Only in xxv. 8 seq. is the elimination of the additions difficult. But the fact that the last edition of the Law of Holiness proceeds from the Priestly Code, is universally acknowledged. Its importance for the literary history of Israel cannot be over-estimated. /1/

— Footnote 1. L. Horst, in his discussion on Leviticus XVii,-XXYi, and Ezekiel (Colmar, 1881), has strikingly shown that the mechanical style of criticism in which Dillmann even surpasses his predecessor Knobel, is not equal to the problem presented by the Law of Holiness. He goes on, however, to an attempt to save, by modifying it, the old Strassburg view of Ezekiel's authorship; and as Kuenen justly remarks, he makes ship-wreck on Leviticus xxvi. (Theol. Tijdschr. 1882, p. 646). Cf. <next note, beginning "Horst…">. — Footnote

IX.II.2. The concluding oration, Leviticus xxvi. 3-46, calls for special consideration. Earlier scholars silently assumed that this piece belonged to Leviticus xvii. 1-XXVI. 2; but many critics, Noldeke for example, now regard it as an interpolation in Leviticus of a piece which from its character should be elsewhere. At any rate the oration is composed with special reference to what precedes it. If it is not taken as a peroration, such as Exodus xxiii. 30-33, Deuteronomy xxviii., its position in such a part of the Priestly Code is quite incomprehensible. It has, moreover, a palpable connection with the laws in xvii.-xxv. The land, and agriculture, have here the same significance for religion as in chaps. xix. xxiii. xxv.; the threat of vomiting out (xviii. 25 seq., xx. 22) is repeated here more circumstantially; the only statute actually named is that of the fallow of the seventh year (xxvi. 34, xxv. 1-7). The piece begins with the expression, which is so characteristic of the author of chapter xvii. seq. "If ye walk in my statutes, and keep my commandments, and do them," and the same phrase recurs, with slight alteration, in vers. 15 and 43. The conclusion, verse 46, is, "These are the statutes and judgments and laws which Jehovah gave, to regulate the relation between Him and Israel on Mount Sinai, by Moses." This is obviously the subscription of a preceding corpus of statutes and judgments, such as we have in, xvii. 1-xxvi. 2. Mount Sinai is mentioned also in xxv. 1 as the place of revelation.

If Leviticus xxvi. is incontestably intended to form the conclusion of chaps. xvii.-xxv., it would be natural to suppose that the author of that collection was also the author of the oration. Noldeke thinks, however, that the language differs too much from that of xvii.-xxv. Yet he is obliged to acknowledge several resemblances, and these not unimportant; while some of the differences which he adduces (Bamoth, Gillulim, Hammanim, xxvi. 30) are really examples of similarity. Rare and original words may be found in the preceding chapters also. It may be that in chapter xxvi they are more frequent in proportion: yet this does not entitle us to say that the language generally is very original. On the contrary, it is everywhere characterised by borrowed expressions. So much of linguistic difference as actually remains is sufficiently accounted for by the difference of subject: first come laws in a dry matter-of-fact style, then prophecy in a poetical pathetic style. The idiosyncrasy of the writer has no scope in the former case, from the nature of the materials, some of which had already assumed their form before he made use of them. In the latter case he can express himself freely; and it is fair that this should not be overlooked.

The arguments brought forward by Noldeke against the probability that Leviticus xxvi. belongs to chaps. xvii.-xxv. and is not merely tacked on to them, disappear completely on a closer comparison of the literary character of the two pieces. Chapter xxvi. reminds us most strongly of Ezekiel's style, both in thought and language. The most significant passage is Leviticus xxvi. 39. The threat has been uttered that Israel is to be destroyed as a people, and that the remnant which escapes the destroying sword of the enemy is to be carried into exile, to sink under the weight of past calamity and present affliction. Then the speech goes on: "And they that are left of you shall pine away in their iniquity in your enemies' land; and also in the iniquities of their fathers shall they pine away. Then they will confess their own sin and the sin of their fathers." In Ezekiel, this confession actually occurs in the mouth of one of his fellow-exiles: they say (xxxiii. 10), "Our transgressions and our sins are heavy upon us, and we pine away in them, and cannot live." In the same strain the prophet says (xxiv. 23) that in his dull sorrow for the death of his wife he will be an emblem of the people: "ye shall not mourn nor weep, but ye shall pine away in your iniquities."

Nor are the other traits wanting in the oration which, as we say, accompanied the Ezekielic colouring of the preceding chapters. We do not expect to find traces of the influence of the Jehovist legislation (further than that Exodus xxiii. 20 seq. formed the model both for Deuteronomy xxviii. and Leviticus xxvi.); but to make up for this we find very distinct marks of the influence of the prophets, the older prophets too, as Amos (verse 31). We can as little conceive the existence of the Book of Ezekiel as of this chapter without the prophetic literature having preceded it and laid the foundation for it.

As for the relation to Deuteronomy, the resemblance of Leviticus xxvi. to Deuteronomy xxviii. is very great, in the arrangement as well as in the ideas. True, there are not many verbal coincidences, but the few which do occur are important. The expressions of xxvi. 16 occur nowhere in the Old Testament but in Deuteronomy xxviii. 22, 65: similarly R)#YM with the meaning it has in verse 45 only occurs in Deuteronomy xix. 14 and in the later literature (Isaiah lxi. 6). The metaphor of the uncircumcised heart (verse 41) only occurs in one other passage in the law, in Deuteronomy; the other instances of it are in prophecy, of contemporary or later date (Jeremiah iv. 4, ix. 24, 25, Ezekiel xliv. 7, 9). There are several more reminiscences of Jeremiah, most of them, however, not very distinct. We may remark on the relation between Jeremiah xvi. 18 in one respect to verse 30, and in another to verse 18 of our chapter. Here the sin is punished sevenfold, in Jeremiah double. The same is said in Isaiah xl. 2, lx. 7; and our chapter has also in common with this prophet the remarkable use of rtc,h (with sin or trespass as object). Did not the chapter stand in Leviticus, it would, doubtless, be held to be a reproduction, some small part of it of the older prophecies, the most of it of those of Jeremiah and Ezekiel: Leviticus xxvi. 34 is actually quoted in 2Chronicles xxxvi 22 as a word of the prophet Jeremiah.

Leviticus xxvi. has points of contact, finally, with the Priestly Code, in PRH WRBH, HQYM BRYT, HTWDH, )NY, (never )NKY), in the excessive use of the accusative participle and avoidance of verbal suffixes, and in its preferring the colourless NTN to verbs of more special meaning.

The only reason for the attempt to separate Leviticus xxvi. from xvii.-xxv. lies in the fact, that the exilic or post-exilic origin of this hortatory and denunciatory oration is too plain to be mistaken. To us, this circumstance can only prove that it belongs to xvii.-xxv., providing a weighty confirmation of the opinion we have already formed on other grounds as to the period which produced these laws.

"If ye will not for all this hearken unto me, but walk contrary to me, then I will also walk contrary to you in fury; and I will chastise you seven times for your sins. Ye shall eat the flesh of your sons and daughters, and I will destroy your high places, and cast down your sun-pillars' and cast your carcasses upon the carcasses of your idols, and my soul shall abhor you. And I will make your cities waste, and bring your sanctuaries into desolation, and I will not smell the savour of your sweet odours. And I will bring the land into desolation, and your enemies who settle therein shall be astonished at it; and I will scatter you among the peoples, and will draw out the sword after you, and your land shall be desolate and your cities ruins. Then shall the land pay her sabbaths all the years of the desolation when you are in your enemies' land: even then shall the land rest and pay her sabbaths. As long as it lieth desolate it shall make up the celebration of the sabbaths which it did not celebrate as long as you dwelt in it. And upon them that are left alive of you I will send a faintness into their hearts in the land of their enemies, and the sound of a shaken leaf shall chase them, and they shall flee as fleeing from a sword, and they shall fall when none pursueth. And they shall fall one upon another as it were before a sword when none pursueth, and there shall be no stopping in the flight before your enemies. And ye shall lose yourselves among the peoples, and the land of your enemies shall eat you up. And they that are left of you shall pine away in their iniquity in your enemies' lands, and also in the iniquities of their fathers shall they pine away. And they shall confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers in regard to their unfaithfulness which they committed against me, and that because they have walked contrary to me, I also walk contrary to them, and bring them into the land of their enemies. Then their uncircumcised heart is humbled, and then they pay their penalty, and I remember my covenant with Jacob, and also my covenant with Isaac, and also my covenant with Abraham, and I remember the land. The land also, left by them, pays its sabbaths, while she lieth without inhabitant and waste, and they themselves pay the penalty of their iniquity because, even because, they despised my judgments, and their soul abhorred my statutes. And yet for all that, when they be in the land of their enemies, I have not rejected them, neither have I abhorred them to destroy them utterly, and to break my covenant with them: for I am Jehovah their God. And I will for their sakes remember the covenant of their ancestors whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the peoples, that I might be their God: I am Jehovah" (xxvi. 27-45).

These words undoubtedly cannot have been written before the Babylonian exile. It is said that the Assyrian exile will explain the passage: but where is there any similarity between the oration before us and the old genuine Isaiah? In Ezekiel's day such thoughts, feelings, and expressions as we have here can be shown to have prevailed: but it would be difficult to show that the fall of Samaria gave rise to such depression at Jerusalem: and Leviticus xxvi. was not written outside Jerusalem, for it presupposes unity of worship. The Jews are addressed here, as in Deuteronomy xxix., xxx., and they had no such lively feeling of solidarity with the deported Israelites as to think of them in connection with such threats. I even think it certain that the writer lived either towards the end of the Babylonian exile or after it, since at the close of the oration he turns his eyes to the restoration. In such prophets as Jeremiah and Ezekiel there is a meaning in such forecasting of the joyful future but here it contradicts both the historical position and the object of the threats, and appears to be explained most naturally as the result of an accident, i.e., of actuality. That in a comparison of Leviticus xxvi. with Jeremiah and Ezekiel, the former cannot claim priority, appears distinctly from the comparative use of the phrase uncircumised heart. That phrase originates in Jeremiah (iv. 4, ix. 24 seq.), but in Leviticus xxvi. it is used as a well-known set term. In the same way the phrase pine away in their iniquity is repeated by Ezekiel as he heard it in the mouth of the people. He is its originator in literature; in Leviticus xxvi. it is borrowed. /1/

— Footnote 1. Horst tries to find a place for Leviticus xxvi. in the last years of king Zedekiah (op. cit. p. 65, 66), but in this he is merely working out his theory that the author was the youthful Ezekiel; and the theory is sufficiently condemned if it leads to this consequence. Delitzsch (Zeitschr. fur Kirchl. Wissench. 1880, p. 619) thinks it a piece of impertinence in me to read out of Ezekiel xxxiii. what that passage says. On Deuteronomy x. 16, xxx. 6, and generally on the color Hieremianus in Deuteronomy, see Jahrb. fur D. Thhcol., 1877, p. 464. — Footnote

The criticism of Leviticus xvii. seq. Ieads us to the result, that a collection of laws which took form during the period of the exile was received into the Priestly Code, and there clothed with fresh life. We need not then tremble at Schrader's threatening us with "critical analysis," and Graf's hypothesis will not be thereby overturned.

IX.II.3. Two or three further important traces of the final priestly revision of the Hexateuch may here find mention. In the story of the flood the verses vii. 6-9 are an editorial addition, with the object of removing a contradiction between JE and Q; it shares the ideas and speaks the language of the Priestly Code. In the title of Deuteronomy the verse, "It came to pass in the fortieth year, in the eleventh [(#TY] month, on the first day of the month, that Moses spake unto the children of Israel according to all that Jehovah had given him in commandment unto them" (i. 3) is shown by the most undoubted signs to belong to the Priestly Code, and is intended to incorporate Deuteronomy in that work. We have already shown that the Priestly Code in the Book of Joshua is simply a filling-up of the Jehovistic-Deuteronomistic narrative.

That the Priestly Code consists of elements of two kinds, first of an independent stem, the Book of the Four Covenants (Q), and second, of innumerable additions and supplements which attach themselves principally to the Book of the Four Covenants, but not to it alone, and indeed to the whole of the Hexateuch—this assertion has not, strange to say, met with the opposition which might have been expected. Ryssel has even seen in the twofold nature of the Priestly Code a means to maintain the position of the Book of the Four Covenants before the exile: he sacrifices the additions, and places the necessary interval between them and the main body of the work. He thinks the close affinity between the two parts is sufficiently explained by the supposition that they both issued from the same circle, that of the priesthood of Jerusalem. Were it the case that the temple of Jerusalem was as autonomous and as solely legitimate in the days of Solomon as in those of the foreign domination, that the priests had as much to say under Ahaz, Hezekiah, and Josiah as after the exile, if it were allowable to represent them according as it suits one's views, and not according to the historical evidence, if, in short, there were no Israelite history at all, such an explanation might be allowed to stand. The secondary part of the Priestly Code of necessity draws the primary part with it. The similarity in matter and in form, the perfect agreement in tendencies and ideas, in expressions and ways of putting things, all compel us to think that the whole, if not a literary, is yet a historical, unity.