Companion to the Bible

by E. P. Barrows

The Talmud arranges the Greater Prophets thus: Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Isaiah. Of the Hagiographa, various other arrangements, Masoretic and Talmudic, are given, which it is not necessary here to specify.

That the writing of sacred history belonged to the prophetical office is clear from various scriptural notices. Compare 1 Chron. 29:29; 2 Chron, 9:29; 12:15; 20:34; 26:22; 32:32, 33:19. The narrative concerning Sennacherib inserted in the second book of Kings (18:13-19:37) is manifestly from the pen of Isaiah. The Rabbins rightly ascribed the composition of the historical as well as the other books which compose, according to their division, the Prophets, to prophetical men. But the grounds upon which they separated from these certain books, as, for example, Daniel, and placed them among the Hagiographa, are not clear. Some of the rabbins made the distinction to lie in the degree of inspiration, Moses enjoying it in the fullest measure (Numb. 12:6-8), the authors of the books which are classed among the prophets having the Spirit of prophecy, and those of the books belonging to the Hagiographa simply the Holy Spirit (the Holy Spirit, but not in the degree necessary for prophetic revelation). But this distinction is untenable. Who had the spirit of prophecy if not Daniel? In the opinion of some modern scholars, they reckoned to the Prophets only books written by men who were prophets in the stricter sense of the term; that is, men trained to the prophetical office, and exercising it as their profession; while the writings of men like David, Solomon, and Daniel, who though they had the Spirit of prophecy, were yet in their office not prophets, but rulers and statesmen, were assigned to the Hagiographa. But this is inconsistent with the fact that the book of Ruth (which in respect to authorship must go with that of Judges) and also the book of Lamentations are in the Hagiographa. Others, with more probability, find the main ground of classification in the character of the writings themselves—the Law, as the foundation of the Theocracy; the Prophets, that record the history of the Theocracy and make prophetic revelations concerning it; the sacred Writings, occupied with the personal appropriation of the truths of revelation, and as such exhibiting the religious life of the covenant people in its inward and outward form. But even here we do not find perfect consistency.

(B.) Classification of the Greek Version of the Seventy. The ancient Greek version of the Old Testament, called the Septuagint (Latin Septuaginta, seventy), because, according to Jewish tradition, it was the work of seventy men, interweaves the apocryphal with the canonical books. Its arrangement is as follows, the apocryphal books and parts of books being indicated by italic letters. We follow the edition of Van Ess from the Vatican manuscript, which omits the apocryphal Prayer of Manasseh:

1. Genesis.
2. Exodus.
3. Leviticus.
4. Numbers.
5. Deuteronomy.
6. Joshua.
7. Judges.
8. Ruth.
9. 1 Kings (our 1 Samuel).
10. 2 Kings (our 2 Samuel).
11. 3 Kings (our 1 Kings).
12. 4 Kings (our 2 Kings).
13. 1 Chronicles.
14. 2 Chronicles.
15. 1 Esdras.
16. 2 Esdras (our Ezra).
17. Nehemiah.
18. Tobit.
19. Judith.
20. Esther, with apocryphal additions.
21. Job.
22. Psalms.
23. Proverbs.
24. Ecclesiastes.
25. Canticles.
26. Wisdom of Solomon.
27. Ecclesiasticus.
28. Hosea.
29. Amos.
30. Micah.
31. Joel.
32. Obadiah.
33. Jonah.
34. Nahum.
35. Habakkuk.
36. Zephaniah.
37. Haggai.
38. Zechariah.
39. Malachi.
40. Isaiah.
41. Jeremiah.
42. Baruch.
43. Lamentations.
44. Epistle of Jeremiah.
45. Ezekiel.
46. Daniel, with apocryphal additions—Song of the Three Children in the Furnace, History of Susannah, Story of Bel and the Dragon.
47. 1 Maccabees.
48. 2 Maccabees.
49. 3 Maccabees.

The arrangement of books in the Latin Vulgate agrees with that of the Septuagint with the following exceptions: the two canonical books of Ezra and Nehemiah appear together, as in the Septuagint, but under the titles of 1 Esdras and 2 Esdras. Next follow the two apocryphal books of Esdras (the latter wanting in the Septuagint), under the titles of 3 Esdras and 4 Esdras. The Greater Prophets, with Lamentations after Jeremiah and Daniel after Ezekiel, are inserted before the twelve Minor Prophets, which last stand in the order followed in our version. Throwing out of account, therefore, the apocryphal books, the order of the Vulgate is that followed by our English Bible.

From the above it is manifest that in neither the Hebrew, the Greek, nor the Latin arrangement is the order of time strictly followed. The Hebrew, for example, to say nothing of the Psalms, which were written in different ages, throws into the Hagiographa Ruth, Job, Proverbs, etc., which are older than any of the so-called latter prophets. The Hebrew places the books of Kings, and the Greek and Latin not only these, but also the books of Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther, before all the proper prophetical books, though it is well known that several of these were much earlier. In the Hebrew arrangement, the three Greater Prophets precede all the Minor Prophets, though several of the latter were earlier than Jeremiah and Ezekiel, and even Isaiah. In the Greek, on the contrary, Isaiah and Jeremiah, as well as Ezekiel, are placed after even the prophets of the Restoration. The biblical student should carefully remember these facts. He must not hastily assume that the books of the Old Testament stand in the order in which they were written, but must determine the age of each for itself, according to the best light that he can obtain. See further in the introductions to the several books.

5. In high antiquity, the continuous mode of writing, (scriptio continua,) without divisions between the words, was common. We cannot indeed infer, from the continuous writing of the oldest manuscripts of the New Testament, that the same method prevailed in the ancient Hebrew writing; for in very ancient inscriptions and manuscripts, belonging to different languages, the words are distinguished from each other more or less completely by points. Yet the neglect of these is common. In most Greek and Phoenician inscriptions there is no division of words. The translators of the Septuagint may be reasonably supposed to have employed the best manuscripts at their command. Yet their version shows that in these the words were either not separated at all, or only partially. The complete separation of words by intervening spaces did not take place till after the introduction of the Assyrian, or square character. Ch. 14, No. 2. With the separation is connected the use of the so-called final letters, that is, forms of certain letters employed exclusively at the ends of words.

6. A very ancient Jewish division of the sacred text is into open and closed sections. The former, which are the larger of the two, are so named because in the Hebrew manuscripts, and in some printed editions, the remainder of the line at their close is left open, the next section beginning with a new line. The closed sections, on the contrary, are separated from each other only by a space in the middle of a line—shut in on either hand. The origin of these sections is obscure. They answer in a general way to our sections and paragraphs, and are older than the Talmud, which contains several references to them, belonging at least to the earliest time when the sacred books were read in public. Davidson, Biblical Criticism, vol. 1, ch. 5.

Different from these, and later in their origin, are the larger sections of the Law, called Parshiyoth (from the singular Parashah, section), which have exclusive reference to the reading of the Law in the synagogue service. These are fifty-four in number, one for each Sabbath of the Jewish intercalary year, while on common years two of the smaller sections are united. Corresponding to these sections of the Law are sections from the Prophets, (the former and latter, according to the Jewish classification,) called Haphtaroth, embracing, however, only selections from the prophets, and not the whole, as do the sections of the Law. The Jewish tradition is that this custom was first introduced during the persecution of Antiochus Epiphanes, (about 167 B.C.,) because the reading of the Law had been prohibited by him. But this account of the matter is doubted by many.

In the Pentateuch, the smaller sections called open and closed are indicated, the former by the Hebrew letter [Hebrew: P], that is, P, the initial letter of the word pethuhah, open; the latter by the Hebrew letter [Hebrew: S]=S, the first letter of the word sethumah, closed. The larger sections, arranged for the reading of the Law in the synagogues, are indicated by three [Hebrew: P]'s or three [Hebrew: S]'s, according as they coincide at their beginning with an open or closed section. In the other portions of the sacred text these divisions are simply indicated by the appropriate spaces. But some printed editions do not observe the distinction between the two in respect to space, so that the open and closed sections are confounded with each other.