ADENEY'S THE SONG OF SONGS AND THE By Rev. ALEX. TOMORY, M.A., Duff 359 College, Calcutta, 362 By Rev. DAVID PURVES, M.A., Gourock, 364 368 369 By Professor S. D. F. SALMOND, D.D., 373 STRACK'S KURzgefasster KOMMENTAR { By Professor A. R. S. KENNEDY, D.D., 378 By Rev. C. ANDERSON SCOTT, B.A., By Rev. Principal VAUGHAN PRYCE, By Rev. JAMES KENNEDY, B.D., Edin- By Rev. A. H. GRAY, M. A., Aberdeen, By Rev. A. HALLIDAY DOUGLAS, M.A., FREMANTLE'S BAMPTON LECTURES; DREWS' DISPUTATIONEN DR MARTIN LUTHER'S; DENDY'S SIGWART's LOGIC; SPIERS'S THE AGE AND AUTHORSHIP OF THE PENTATEUCH; FOWLER'S PROPHECIES, MIRACLES, AND VISIONS OF ST COLUMBA; BROOKS'S THE INFLUENCE OF JESUS; BROOKS'S LECTURES ON PREACHING; BRAY'S THE EDUCATION OF THE FEELINGS; GELZER'S LEONTIOS VON NEAPOLIS ; PIERCE'S THE DOMINION OF CHRIST; MARSON'S THE FOLLOW- ING OF CHRIST; CANTICA CANTICORUM; KATTENBUSCH'S DAS APOSTOLISCHE SYMBOL; CARUS'S THE GOSPEL OF BUDDHA; Denny AND LACEY'S DE HIER- ARCHIA ANGLICANA DISSERTATIO APOLOGETICA; WADDY'S HARMONY OF THE FOUR GOSPELS; STEINMEYER'S STUDIEN ÜBER DEN BRIEF DES PAULUS AN DIE RÖMER; THE EXPOSITOR; THE EXPOSITORY TIMES; JENSEN'S RUNIC ROCKS; HETTINGER'S REVEALED RELIGION; DITCHFIELD'S BOOKS FATAL TO THEIR AUTHORS; TIPPLE'S SUNDAY MORNINGS AT NORWOOD; SATTERLEE'S A CREED- LESS GOSPEL AND THE GOSPEL CREED; STRACK UND ZÖCKLER'S KURZGEFASSTER KOMMENTAR REUSS'S DAS ALTE TESTAMENT; BORNEMANN'S DIE THESSA- LONICHERBRIEFE; KRÜGER'S GESCHICHTE DER ALTCHRISTLICHEN LITTERATUR; BLASS'S ACTA APOSTOLORUM; FRIEDLÄNDER'S SPINOZA; DIE MACHT DES PERSÖNLICHEN IM LEBEN; MACKENZIE'S ETHICS OF GAMBLING; CORNISH'S WEEK BY WEEK; GIDDINS'S THE CHRISTIAN TRAVELLERS' CONTINENTAL GUIDE; TEUBNER'S ANTHOLOGIAE LATINAE SUPPLEMENTA; ZAHN'S DER STOIKER EPICTET ; ATTWOOD'S THE BALANCE - SHEET OF CRITICISM; 430 The International Critical Commentary. A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Deuteronomy, by the Rev. S. R. Driver, D.D., Regius Professor of Hebrew, and Canon of Christ Church, Oxford. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1895. Post Svo, pp. xcvi. 434. Price, 12s. THE prospectus of this great undertaking is proof of how immense a progress has taken place in Britain and America in the temper and ambition of Biblical criticism since the last great effort of the kind. The latter was denominational, was not abreast even of the English scholarship of the time, and was further left behind by the large advances in historical research and critical method which have distinguished the last twenty-five years. But here we have a design, which is neither ruled by the doctrine nor limited by the scholarship of one Church, which has enlisted men of very various ecclesiastical sympathies, both in America and Great Britain, and promises to be abreast of all the Biblical criticism of its day. While increasing the usefulness of such a design, it does not weaken its scientific character that, by an arrangement to keep distinct the purely textual and philological criticism from the exegesis, the latter is made serviceable to students and preachers unacquainted with Hebrew. The series could have had no better introduction than this volume from its Old Testament editor. Not only is the subject at once the pivot of the criticism of the Pentateuch and the ground on which law and prophecy meet, but in his treatment of it Dr Driver has set before his colleagues in the series a standard of the highest kind. It is seldom that an editor, who is generally content with furnishing an ideal and a more or less perfunctory revision, provides his authors with so lucid and inspiring an example. There are, it is true, a few details of arrangement which appear to require reconsideration. Is it not possible to give a continuous translation of the text? The outline of the contents of each section is useful, but it could have been more easily dispensed with than a translation, which would not have added greatly to the size of the volume. One feels the absence of this the more when one comes to the poems in xxxii., xxxiii., which Dr Driver has translated throughout. The other contents are well-arranged, and there is a good sense of proportion in their distribution between large and small print. The size of the volume is convenient; and though the glaze on the paper is trying to the eyes in gas-light, the type is large and clear. These, however, are very minor merits beside the scope and spirit of the Commentary itself. Dr Driver has not given us any brilliant adventure in criticism-on such a field such an enterprise was hardly possible-but he has achieved a commentary of rare learning and still more rare candour and sobriety of judgment. Even with so judicious and comprehensive a work as Dillmann's classic on Deuteronomy, this may be fearlessly compared. It is everywhere based on an inde pendent study of the text and history; its conclusions are as original and as sound; it has a large number of new details; its treatment of the religious value of the book is beyond praise. We find, in short, all those virtues which are conspicuous in the author's previous works, with a warmer and more interesting style of expression. The first treats of the The second relates D The introduction consists of five sections. name and gives an outline of the contents. to the other documents of the Pentateuch, as in Dr Driver's Introduction to the Old Testament. The third is on the "Scope and Character of Deuteronomy, its dominant ideas" it is one of the ablest portions, and, as the subject demanded, the best-written portion, of the whole volume. Note especially how the doctrine of the central sanctuary is shown to be a corollary of the monotheism of the writer. The fifth section, which is the longest, discusses the authorship, date and structure. Dr Driver's conclusions with regard to the latter may be stated first. In the controversy regarding the unity of chs. v.-xxvi. and xxviii., he takes sides with Kuenen and Dillmann against Wellhausen, and defends the unity. He sees no reason why chs. i.-iii. should not also be from the same hand; and against putting iv. 1-40 along with them he feels only one slight inconclusive reason. Ch. xxvii. is a later expansion of a Deuteronomic nucleus. In xxix.-xxxiv. Dr Driver rejects as improbable the transpositions and alterations suggested by Dillmann and Westphal in support of their theory of a final hortatory discourse. These words in xxxi. 28 and xxxii, 46 he takes to apply not to that; but in the former verse to the Song in ch. xxxii. and in the latter verse to the whole Deuteronomic discourses. Chs. xxix.-xxx. are a supplementary discourse from the Deuteronomist, except the two passages, xxix. 9-28, xxx. 1-10, the former of which certainly, and the latter with hesitation, are assigned to a later Deuteronomic hand or hands (D2). Chs. xxxi.-xxxiv. are assigned, as by most critics, among the various documents of the Hexateuch. The song in ch. xxxii., with its introduction, xxxi. 16-22, is held to have been inserted from an independent source by D2, who added xxxi. 28-30; while vers. 1-13, 24-27 are from the original Deuteronomist, and vers. 14-15 are of JE. The Blessing in ch. xxxiii. was incorporated in the text at an uncertain stage. In ch. xxxiv., as usual, part of la, 1b-5a, 6 and 10 are assigned to JE; 11-12 to D2; and the rest to P, who is also held to have written i. 3 and xxxii. 48-52. It will be seen, then, that beyond a few details, there is nothing new suggested as to the structure of the text. The most important feature of the analysis is the very small portion assigned to a second Deuteronomist. Most critics will feel that Dr Driver's prudence is justified though the matter is not certain, there is no decisive evidence against attributing i.-iv. 40 to the author of v.-xxvi. On the question of date and authorship there is even less ground for difference of opinion. The question of Deuteronomy was one of the earliest raised among us, and at this time of day it is not worth while going back upon it. It is difficult indeed to understand how any can cling to the Mosaic authorship of the book in face of these facts-that it nowhere avers to be by Moses: that its standpoint is Western Palestine, and that its whole perspective is so plainly that of some centuries after the events it describes. This is even the case with the speeches attributed to Moses. The war with Sihon is more than once described as taking place in the going forth from Egypt, which happened forty years before. This could not have been said by one who was speaking to Israel a few weeks or months after the war with Sihon: but it is a most natural description for a writer to whom the whole forty years were foreshortened. To the present reviewer this, the Scripture's own proof of its origin, has always seemed sufficient by itself to decide the question. But on this and all the other evidence the enquirer will find the case stated by Dr Driver with a candour, moderation and justice which take nothing for granted, and exhaust the possibilities on all sides. At the present stage, however, students will probably find even more valuable the very judicious and suggestive pages in which Dr Driver relates the legislation of Deuteronomy to Moses. Not that the problems of Deuteronomy are by any means exhausted by Dr Driver; nor has he even stated all of them fully. It will perhaps be more useful if instead of reciting further the many virtues of this Commentary, this review notes some points either deserving of reconsideration or that have been altogether omitted. No one will feel that the bottom of the mystery of Deuteronomy has been sounded by the argument which discusses to what part of the seventh century we owe it. Dr Driver does not admit the decisiveness of the evidence for a date in the reign of Josiah; and he repudiates the theory which ascribes it to Hilkiah. He apparently leans to a date under Manasseh or Amon. I do not think he gives sufficient weight to the objection, that in such a case the Book would have reflected the evil conditions of these reigns. He says that "from the nature of the case an exhortation placed in |