The Psalms were written the most part by David, for the use of the quire. To these are added some songs of Moses, and other holy men; and some of them after the return from the captivity, as the 137th and the 126th, whereby it is manifest that the Psalter was compiled, and put into the form it now hath, after the return of the Jews from Babylon.
The Proverbs.
The Proverbs, being a collection of wise and godly sayings, partly of Solomon, partly of Agur, the son of Jakeh, and partly of the mother of king Lemuel, cannot probably be thought to have been collected by Solomon, rather than by Agur, or the mother of Lemuel; and that, though the sentences be theirs, yet the collection or compiling them into this one book, was the work of some other godly man, that lived after them all.
Ecclesiastes and the Canticles.
The books of Ecclesiastes and the Canticles have nothing that was not Solomon’s, except it be the titles, or inscriptions. For The Words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem; and, The Song of Songs, which is Solomon’s, seem to have been made for distinction’s sake, then, when the Books of Scripture were gathered into one body of the law; to the end, that not the doctrine only, but the authors also might be extant.
Prophets.
Of the prophets, the most ancient, are Zephaniah, Jonah, Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, and Michah, who lived in the time of Amaziah and Azariah, otherwise Ozias, kings of Judah. But the book of Jonah is not properly a register of his prophecy; for that is contained in these few words, Forty days and Niniveh shall be destroyed; but a history or narration of his frowardness and disputing God’s commandments; so that there is small probability he should be the author, seeing he is the subject of it. But the book of Amos is his prophecy.
Jeremiah, Obadiah, Nahum, and Habakkuk prophecied in the time of Josiah.
Ezekiel, Daniel, Haggai, and Zechariah, in the captivity.
When Joel and Malachi prophecied, is not evident by their writings. But considering the inscriptions, or titles of their books, it is manifest enough, that the whole Scripture of the Old Testament, was set forth in the form we have it, after the return of the Jews from their captivity in Babylon, and before the time of Ptolomæus Philadelphus, that caused it to be translated into Greek by seventy men, which were sent him out of Judea for that purpose. And if the books of Apocrypha, which are recommended to us by the church, though not for canonical, yet for profitable books for our instruction, may in this point be credited, the Scripture was set forth in the form we have it in, by Esdras: as may appear by that which he himself saith, in the second book, (chapter xiv. verse 21, 22, &c.) where speaking to God, he saith thus, Thy law is burnt; therefore no man knoweth the things which thou hast done, or the works that are to begin. But if I have found grace before thee, send down the holy spirit into me, and I shall write all that hath been done in the world, since the beginning, which were written in thy law, that men may find thy path, and that they which will live in the latter day, may live. And verse 45: And it came to pass when the forty days were fulfilled, that the highest spake, saying, The first that thou hast written, publish openly, that the worthy and unworthy may read it; but keep the seventy last, that thou mayest deliver them only to such as be wise among the people. And thus much concerning the time of the writing of the books of the Old Testament.