Jonathan Edwards · 318 of 409

Pentateuch · Part 2

The law was written as a covenant, or as a record of a covenant, between God and the people; and therefore the tables of the law and the tables of the covenant, the book of the law and the book of the covenant, are synonymous phrases in Scripture. And the psalmist, Ps. cv. 1, 10. speaking of the covenant that God made with the patriarchs, says, that God confirmed the same unto Jacob for a law, and unto Israel for an everlasting covenant. It is to be noted that the promise to Abraham is what is there especially called the law, and the word which God commanded The threatenings of the law are called the words of the covenant which God made by Moses in Jer. xi. 8. But if Moses wrote the book of the law as a record of the covenant that was made between God and the congregation of Israel, it was necessary to write the people’s consent, or what was done on both sides, for there was a mutual transacting in this covenant. See Deut. xxvi. 17, 18. “Thou hast avouched the Lord this day to be thy God, and to walk in his ways,” &c. “And the Lord hath avouched thee this day to be his peculiar people as he hath promised thee, and that thou shouldest keep all his commandments.” Agreeable hereto is the account we have, Exod. xix. 8. and xxiv. 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. and Deut. v. 27. and xxvi. 17.

The discourse that we have in Deut. xxix. and xxx. is introduced thus, Deut. xxix. “These are the words of the covenant which the Lord commanded Moses to make with the children of Israel in the land of Moab, beside the covenant which he made with them in Horeb.” But the following discourse, called the words of the covenant, is made up of the following things, viz. a history of the transaction, Moses’s rehearsal of past transactions and wonderful dealings of God with them, with reproofs for their insensibility and unaffectedness as introducing what he had further to say. He then proceeds to charge them to serve the true God, and to avoid idolatry, and then to enforce this charge with awful threatenings and predictions of judgments that shall come upon them if they transgress, with the circumstances of these judgments, and promises of forgiveness on repentance; and the whole concluded with various arguments, pressing instances, solemn appeals, obtestations, exhortations, &c. to enforce their duty. If such a miscellany is called the words of the covenant, we need not wonder if the whole book, that is called the book of the law, should be a similar miscellany.

It was necessary that a record of a covenant between God and the nation of Israel, should contain the story of the transaction. But this, if fully related, would bring in very much of the history of the Pentateuch, which is extensively made up of an account of those things that were done by God, to bring the people into a covenant relation to him, and the way in which they became his covenant people. Hence the psalmist, in Psalm cv. having mentioned this covenant and law which God established with the people, proceeds in the ensuing part of the Psalm, to rehearse the series of events relating this covenant transaction, from God’s entering into covenant with the patriarchs to the children of Israel’s being brought into Canaan.

It was exceedingly necessary, in particular, when Moses was about to write a record of the covenant which God established with the people, and to give an account of the manner in which he entered into covenant with them, and brought them into a covenant relation to him, to show the beginning of it with the patriarchs, with whom that covenant was first established, and with whom was laid the foundation of all that transaction, and that great dispensation of the Lord of heaven and earth with that people, in separating them from all the rest of the world, to be his peculiar covenant people. The beginning and groundwork of the whole affair was mainly with them, and what was done afterwards by the hand of Moses, was only in pursuance of what had been promised to them, and often established with them, and for which God made way by his acts and revelations towards them. What God said and did towards those patriarchs, is often spoken of in the words of the law (those that are expressly called the law) as the foundation of the whole, and also in other parts of the Old Testament; as most expressly in Psalm cv. 8, 9, 10.; see also Josh. xxiv. 3., &c.; and many other parallel places.

And there is very often in the law, strictly so called, an express reference to the covenant that God had made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as in Levit. xxvi. 42. Deut. iv. 31, 37. Deut. vi. 10, 18. and vii. 8, 12. and ix. 5, 27. and x. 11, 15. and xix. 8. xxvi. 3, 15. and xxx. 20. which passages are unintelligible without the history of the patriarchs. And there are many other passages in the law, wherein there is an implicit reference to the same thing; as in those in which God speaks of the land, which the Lord their God had given them, or had promised them, the land of the Amorites, the Hittites, the Canaanites, &c. referring to the promise made to Abraham, Gen. xv. 18., to the end; where God promises to Abraham the land of those nations by name.

Again, the forementioned considerations, many of them must, at least, induce us to believe that Moses wrote the history of the redemption of the children of Israel out of Egypt, so far at least as he himself was concerned in that affair, and was made the chief instrument of it, from his being first called and sent of God on that errand. But this as naturally leads us back further still, even to what God said and did to the patriarchs; for the beginning of this history directly points and leads us to those things as the foundation of this great affair, of which God now called Moses to be the great instrument. Thus when God first appeared to Moses, and spake to him in mount Sinai out of the bush, and gave him his commission, it was with these words, “I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” Exod. iii. 6. So again, ver. 13, 14, 15, 16. “And Moses said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you, and they shall say to me, What is his name? What shall I say unto them? And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you. And God said, moreover, unto Moses, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, The Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you: this is my name for ever, and this is my memorial unto all generations. Go and gather the elders of Israel together, and say unto them, The Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, appeared unto me, saying, I have surely visited you, for that which is done to you in Egypt.” So again, chap. iv. 5. “That they may believe that the Lord God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath appeared unto thee.” And chap. vi. 2, 3, 4. “And God spake unto Moses, and said unto him, I am the Lord, and I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name of God Almighty; but by my name JEHOVAH was I not known to them. And I have established my covenant with them, to give them the land of Canaan, the land of their pilgrimage, wherein they were strangers.” It is unreasonable on many forementioned accounts, to believe any other than that Moses should write this history, and it is most credible that he did it on this account, that those first extraordinary appearances of God to him, as is natural to suppose, made most strong impressions on his mind, and if he wrote any history it is likely he wrote this. But from these things it appears that the history of the patriarchs lays the whole foundation of the history of the redemption of the children of Israel out of Egypt, and of God’s separating them and bringing them into a covenant relation with himself. So that it cannot be understood without the history of the patriarchs. Would it not therefore have been an essential defect in Moses, in writing that history, to leave the children of Israel without any record of that great foundation?

There is frequent mention in that part of the Pentateuch, (which is expressly styled the law,) of several tribes of Israel and their names, and of the patriarchs who were the heads of the tribes. Deut. iii. 12, 13, 15, 16. and xxvii. 11, 13. and elsewhere. And Moses was commanded to engrave the names of the twelve patriarchs on the stones of the breastplate of the high-priest. But these things are not intelligible without the history of Jacob’s family. In Deut. x. 22. there is a reference to Jacob’s going down into Egypt with threescore and ten persons, which is not intelligible without the history.

The law for him that brings the offering of the first-fruits cannot be understood without the history of Jacob’s difficulties and sufferings in Padan-Aram, and the history of his going down into Egypt with its circumstances, and the history of the great increase of his posterity there, and the history of their oppression and hard bondage there, and the history and circumstances of their deliverance from it, and the history of the great and wondrous works of God in Egypt, and the Red sea, and the wilderness, until the people came to Canaan. And if Moses left no record of these things; then, in the law, he enjoined him who offered the first-fruits, (i. e. of all the people, every individual householder, from generation to generation,) to make an explicit confession and declaration of those things that he did not understand.

What is said in the law, of the Edomites, as the children of Esau, and what God had given to him for his possession, and the favour God showed Esau, in Deut. ii. 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 22. and the law concerning the Edomites, Deut. xxiii. 7, 8. how they should be treated, because Esau was their brother, cannot be understood without the history of the family of Isaac. And the kind of mention made of Moab and Ammon, as the founders of the nations of the Moabites and Ammonites, and the favour showed them on their father Lot’s account, in Deut. ii. seems to suppose the history of Lot and his family, and cannot be understood without it. And the reference there is in the law to the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, Deut. xxix. 23. cannot be understood without the history of that affair.

These things that have been mentioned, lead us up in the history of the Pentateuch, within less than eleven chapters of its beginning; so that according to what has been said, all except this very small part of the Pentateuch must have been delivered by Moses to the children of Israel; and it is unreasonable to suppose that this small part was not delivered by the same hand as part of the same record. The history of Abraham begins with the 26th verse of the 11th chapter of Genesis.; and the beginning of that history is there so connected with, and as it were grows upon, the preceding history of Noah and his posterity, that to suppose any other than that they were originally the same record, having the same author, is most unreasonable. That Moses’s history began any where between that and the beginning of Genesis, or that that part of Genesis from the beginning to the 26th verse of the 11th chapter., is to be divided, as having several writers, are suppositions which, from a bare view of the history itself, any one will be convinced are erroneous. But it will appear still more unreasonable not to ascribe it to Moses, if we consider not only the connexion of the beginning of the history of Abraham with it, but the dependence of many things in the following history upon it; and also in that part of the Pentateuch that is more plainly called the Law. There is frequent mention made both in the law and history of the posterity of the sons of Ham, Mizraim and Canaan, called by the names of these their ancestors, mentioned chap. x. 6. and of those of the posterity of Mizraim, called Caphterim, mentioned ver. 14. and in Deut. ii. 23. and of the posterity of the sons of Canaan, mentioned ver. 15., &c. called by their names. And in the following history there is mention made of Ham, the son of Noah, Gen. xiv. 5. Mention is made of Elam and Shinar, Gen. xiv. 1., &c. of whom we have an account, chap. x. Frequent mention is made of the land of Cush, (in our translation, Ethiopia,) so named from Cush, the son of Ham, of whom we have an account, Gen. x. 6-8. So there is in the following history frequent mention of the land of Aram, the son of Shem. In Balaam’s prophecy, referred to in the law in Deuteronomy, mention is made of Ashur, Chittim, and Eber, Numb. xxiv. 22, 24. The great event of which Moses most evidently wrote the history, and which takes up all the historical part of the Pentateuch, from Gen. x. 26. to the end of Deuteronomy, is God’s separating the seed of Abraham and Israel from all nations, and bringing them near to himself to be his peculiar people. But to the well understanding of this, it was requisite to be informed of the origin of nations, the peopling of the world, and the Most High dividing to the nations their inheritance: and therefore the 9th, 10th and 11th chapters of Genesis. are but a proper introduction to the history of this great event. In the song of Moses, of which mention is made in the law, and which Moses in the law was required to write, and the people in the law were required to keep, and learn, and often rehearse, there is an express reference to the separating the sons of Adam, and God’s dividing the earth among its inhabitants; which is unintelligible without the 10th and 11th chapters of Genesis. In that song, also, is plainly supposed a connexion between this affair, and that great affair of separating the children of Israel from all nations to be his peculiar people, about which most of the history of the Pentateuch is taken up. The words are as follows, and in them the people are expressly called upon to keep in remembrance both these events that are so connected, which obviously supposes a history of both, Deut. xxxii. 7-9. “Remember the days of old, consider the years of many generations. Ask thy father, and he will show thee; thy elders, and they will tell thee; when the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance; when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel. For the Lord’s portion is his people, Jacob is the lot of his inheritance.” And by the way I would observe, that in the following words are also references to other historical facts of the Pentateuch that cannot be understood without the history.

In the fourth commandment, there is such a mention made of the creation of the heavens and the earth, and the sea, and all that in them is, and of God’s resting the seventh day, as is a kind of epitome of the first chapter of Genesis, and the beginning of the second, and is unintelligible without that history; and there is a reference, in Deut. iv. 32. to God’s creation of man, and there is mention in the prophetical song of Moses of the name of Adam, as the grand progenitor of mankind, Deut. xxxii. 8. And there is mention made of the garden of God, or Paradise, Gen. xiii. 10. And before I leave this argument from references to historical facts, I would observe, that a very great part of the thirty-one first chapters of Deuteronomy., (which are most evidently, as I observed before, a part of the law of Moses, laid up in the holy of holies,) are made up of nothing but recapitulations, brief rehearsals, references, and hints of preceding historical facts, and counsels, and enforcements from history, which cannot be understood without the knowledge of that history.

And not only does the law of Moses depend upon the history, and bear such a relation to it, and contain such references to it that it cannot be understood without it, but the manner of writing the law shows plainly that the law and history were written together, they are so connected, interwoven, blended, inwrought, and incorporated in the writing. The history is a part of the law, its preamble from time to time being often made an introduction to laws; and there are continually such transitions from history to law, and from law to history, and such a connexion, and reference, and dependence, that all appears as it were to grow together as the several parts of a tree. These, as they stand, are parts of the continued history, and the history of the facts is only as an introduction and preamble, or reason and enforcement, of the laws, all flowing in a continued series, as the several parts of one uninterrupted stream, all as one body. So that the bare inspection of the writing, as it stands, may be enough to convince any one that all has the same author, and that both were written together. Such is the manner of writing the laws concerning the passover, the chief of all the ceremonial observances, in the 12th chapter of Exodus., and the law concerning the first-born, in the 13th chapter., and the statute and ordinance mentioned in the 15th chapter of Exod. 25, 26. verses. Such also is the manner of writing that law by which is made known to the children of Israel, which particular day is the sabbath, Exod. xvi. 23. Such is the manner of writing the decalogue itself, which in the highest sense is called the law of Moses, in Exod. xx. that it is unreasonable to think that it was recorded by Moses without any of the concomitant history, and those words in the law, Exod. xx. 22, 23. Such are the laws ordering the particular frame of the tabernacle, ark, anointing oil, incense, priest’s garments, with the history of the consequent building, &c. The revelation made to Moses when God proclaimed his name, Exod. xxxiv. 6, 7. which is an important part of the law, together with ver. 10, 11., &c. and ver. 30, 31. The several laws given on occasion of Nadab and Abihu’s being burnt, Levit. x. and chap. xvi. particularly ver. 1, 2. taken with what follows, together with the last words in the chapter. See also Levit. xxi. 1. and ver. 24. and chap. xxii. 1-3, 17, 18. The law concerning blasphemy, with the story of the blasphemy of Shelomith s son, Levit. xxiv. The law of the Levites’ service, with the history of their being numbered and accepted instead of the first-born and consecrated, Num. iii. and iv. and viii. The law of putting the leper out of the camp, Num. v. at the beginning. The law of polluted persons keeping the passover, with the history that gave occasion for it, Num. ix. 6. The history of making the trumpets, with the law concerning their use, Num. x. The law constituting the seventy elders, which is only giving a history of their first appointment, Num. xi. The law of the presumptuous sinner, with the history of the sabbath-breaker, Num. xv. 30., &c. The law for the priests, Num. xviii. which supposes a foregoing history of the rebellion of Korah, see ver. 5. and ver. 27. compared with the 13th verse of the preceding chapter. The law of the inheritance of daughters, with the history of Zelophehad’s daughters. The law of the cities of refuge on the east side of Jordan, with the history of the taking of the country.

History and law are every where so grafted one into another, so mutually inwrought, and do, as it were, so grow one out of and into another, and flow one from another in a continued current, that there is all appearance of their originally growing together, and not in the least of their being artificially patched and compacted together afterwards. It seems impossible impartially and carefully to view the manner of their connexion, and to judge otherwise.

Another argument that the same care was taken to preserve the memory of the facts, as to preserve the precepts of the law, viz. by making a public record of them, to be preserved with the same care, and so in like manner laid up in the sanctuary, is, that it is declared in the law, that the whole law was written, and the record of all the precepts of it transmitted to posterity as a monument of the historical facts, or to that end that the memory of those facts might be kept up in future generations. Deut. vi. 20, to the end. “And when thy son asketh thee in time to come, saying, What mean the testimonies, and the statutes, and the judgments which the Lord our God hath commanded you? Then thou shalt say unto thy son, We were Pharaoh’s bondmen in Egypt, and the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand, and the Lord showed signs and wonders great and sore upon Pharaoh and upon all his household before our eyes, and he brought us out from thence, that he might bring us in to give us the land which he sware unto our fathers. And the Lord commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear the Lord our God, for our good always, that he might preserve us alive, as it is at this day: and it shall be our righteousness if we observe to do all these commandments before the Lord our God, as he hath commanded us.”

It is a plain and demonstrative evidence, that the Jews had all along some standing public records of the facts that we have an account of in the history of the Pentateuch, that these facts are so abundantly, and in such a manner, mentioned or referred to all along in other books of the Old Testament. There is scarcely any part of the history from the beginning of Genesis to the end of Deuteronomy, but what is mentioned or referred to in other books of the Old Testament, that were the writings of after-ages, and some of them are mentioned very often, and commonly with the names of persons and places, and many particular and minute circumstances, not only that part of the history which belongs more immediately to the redemption of Israel out of Egypt, and their journey through the wilderness, but the preceding introductory history, and not only that which concerns the Jewish patriarchs, but the first part of the history of Genesis, even from the very beginning. In these writings we have very often mention of God’s creating the heavens and the earth; Isa. lxv. 17. and lxvi. 22. and xl. 21, 22, 28. and li. 13. and xlii. 5. and xliv. 24. and xlv. 12. and xxxvii. 16. and lxvi. 1, 2. Jer. x. 11, 12. and xxxii. 17. and li. 15. and xiv. 22. 2 Kings xix. 15. Psalm lxxxix. 11, 12. and cii. 25. Zech. xii. 1. Psalm cxv. 15. and cxxi. 2. and cxxiv. 8. and cxxxiv. 3. The manner of God’s creating by speaking the word, Psal. xxxiii. 6, 9. and cxlviii. 5.

The world being at first without form and void, and covered with darkness, agreeably to Genesis i. 2. is referred to Jer. iv. 23.

God’s creating the light is referred to Psal. lxxiv. 16.

God’s creating the light and darkness, Isa. xliv. 7. agreeable to Genesis i. 3, 4.

God’s creating the firmament, Psal. xix. 1.

God’s creating the waters that are above the heavens, Psalm cxlviii. 4, 6. agreeable to Genesis i. 7.

God’s gathering together the waters, Psal. xxxiii. 7. His making the sea and the dry land, Psal. xcv. 5. stretching out the earth above the waters, Psal. cxxxvi. 6. appointing the sea its decreed place, Jer. v. 22. Prov. viii. 29. Psal. civ. 9.

God’s creating the sun, Psal. xix. 1, 4. and lxxiv. 16.

God’s creating the sun for a light by day, and the moon and the stars for a light by night, Jer. xxxi. 35. Psal. cxlviii. 3, 6.

God’s creating great lights. The sun to rule by day, and the moon and stars to rule by night, Psal. cxxxvi. 7, 8, 9. See also Psal. civ. 19. with .ver. 24.

God’s creating the sea, and the many creatures that move herein, and the whale in particular, Psal. civ. 25, 26.

God’s creating the heavens, the earth, and the sea, and all that is therein, Psal. cxlvi. 6.; many parts of the creation is mentioned, Prov. viii. 22-29.

God’s creating man and beast, Jer. xxvii. 5.

God’s creating man, Psal. viii. 5.

Man being made of the dust of the earth, Eccles. xii. 7.

Man’s having dominion given him in his creation over the fish of the sea, and the fowls of the air, and beasts of the earth, Psal. viii. 6, 7, 8.

Man’s having the herbs and plants of the earth given him for meat, Psal. civ. 14, 15. agreeable to Gen. i. 29. and iii. 18.

The first marriage, or God’s making Adam and Eve one, is referred to, Mal. ii. 15.

Adam’s name is mentioned, Hos. vi. 7.

The garden of Eden is often mentioned by name, with its pleasures and delights, Isa. li. 3. Ezek. xxviii. 13. and xxxi. 8, 9, 16, 18. and xxxvi. 35. and Joel ii. 3.

Adam’s violating the covenant is referred to, Hos. vi. 7.

The curse denounced against Adam, that as he was dust, so unto dust he should return, is referred to, Eccles. xii. 7.

The curse denounced on the serpent, that he should eat dust all the days of his life, is referred to, Isa. lxv. 25. Mic. vii. 17.

Mention is made of the flood of waters that stood above the mountains, and God’s rebuking and removing the flood, Psalm civ. 6, 7.

Noah’s name is mentioned, and his righteousness before God, and great acceptance with him, referred to, Isa. liv. 9. and Ezek. xiv. 14, 20.

The waters of Noah’s flood, and their going over the earth, and God’s covenant with Noah, that he would no more destroy the earth with a flood, are mentioned, Isa. liv. 9.

Many of the names of the descendants of Noah that we have an account of in Gen. x. are mentioned in other parts of the Old Testament, and some of them very often, and every where in an agreeableness with the account we have of them there; Psal. lxxviii. 51. and cv. 23, 27. and cvi. 22. and lxxxiii. 8. Isa. xi. 11. and xxiii. 1, 2, 12, 13. Jer. ii. 10. and xxv. 20-25. and xlix. 34-39. Ezek. xxvii. 5-15. and ver. 20-25. chap. xxx. 45. and xxxii. 24, 26. and xxxviii. 2-5, 6, 13. Micah v. 6. and in many other places.

The names of others also that we have an account of as heads of nations in the history of the Pentateuch before Moses’s birth, beside the patriarchs of the Jewish nation, are frequently mentioned, Psal. lxxxiii. 6, 7. Isa. xi. 14, 15. Isa. lx. 6, 7. Jer. ii. 10. Jer. xxv. 20, 25. Jer. xlix. throughout, and in many other places, all is in agreeableness to the history of the Pentateuch. The Philistines coming forth out of Caphtor, Amos ix. 7. Jer. xlvii. 4. compared with Genesis x. 14. and Deut. ii. 23.

The name Babel is often mentioned. There is particular mention of the ancestors of the Jews dwelling on the other side of the river Euphrates, and particularly Terah the father of Abraham, and the father of Nahor, Josh. xxiv.

Abraham being brought from thence of God, from the East, from the other side of the river, his coming at the call of God, and being led by him into the land of Canaan, Josh. xxiv. 3. Isa. xli. 2.

His being called with Sarah his wife, Isa. li. 1, 2.

God’s leading Abraham throughout the land of Canaan, Josh. xxiv. 3. agreeable to Gen. xii. 6. and xiii. 17.

God’s blessing Abraham is mentioned, Isa. li. 1, 2.

Abraham is spoken of as a righteous man, and God’s servant and friend, Isa. xli. 2. and verse 8., Psal. cv. 42.

God’s entering into covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, promising them the land of Canaan, Psal. cv. 8, 9, 10, 11, 42.

The church of God in the families of those patriarchs, being very small, and their being strangers and sojourners in the land of Canaan, and their going from one nation to another, and from one kingdom to another people, and God’s wonderfully restraining men from hurting them, and his reproving kings for their sakes, and God’s calling them prophets, Psal. cv. 12-15.