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Studies in Deuteronomy
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STUDIES IN BIBLICAL THEOLOGY
STUDIES IN
DEUTERONOMY
GERHARD VON RAD
Translated by
DAVID STALKER
SCM PRESS LTD

56 BLOOMSBURY STREET
LONDON
This English translation was prepared from the
revised edition of DEUTERONOMIUM-STUDIEN
published in 1948 by Vandenhoek and Ritprecbt, Gottingen
First published February
Reprinted June 1956

Reprinted April 196
Printed in Great "Britain by

Robert Cunningham and Sons Ltd
Longbank Works, Aha
To
OTTO EISSFELDT HALLE
for 1st September, 1947
with grateful respect
CONTENTS
Author's Foreword 9
I THE CHARACTER OF DEUTERONOMY

AND ITS SACRAL TRADITIONS
FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF
FORM-CRITICISM n
H FORM-CRITICISM OF THE HOLINESS
CODE 25
HE DEUTERONOMY'S 'NAME' THEOLOGY

AND THE PRIESTLY DOCUMENT'S
'KABOD' THEOLOGY 37
IV DEUTERONOMY AND THE HOLY WAR 45
V THEPROVENANCE OF DEUTERONOMY 60
VI THE PURPOSE OF DEUTERONOMY 70

VE THE DEUTERONOMISTIC THEOLOGY
OF HISTORY IN THE BOOKS OF
KINGS 74
Index of biblical references 93

AUTHOR'S FOREWORD
IT is with some diffidence that book appear
I see this little
again unchanged. The study of the Book of Deuteronomy

has advanced both in the Anglo-Saxon world and in Ger-
many and, moreover, in the winter of 1945-6, when I was
preparing these pages, I was cut off from nearly all the more
recent foreign literature on the subject. I regret particularly
that I was not then able to consult the important work of
Adam Welch. Nevertheless I should be glad if this little
book, in spite of its deficiencies, could make some contri-
bution to the interaction in Old Testament studies in both
lands.
G. v. R.
Heidelberg,
nth December^ 1952
CHAPTER ONE
THE CHARACTER OF DEUTERONOMY
AND ITS SACRAL TRADITIONS
FROM THE POINT OF VIEW
OF FORM-CRITICISM
IF we are to make a fresh attack on the problem of Deuter-
onomy, it will best serve our
purpose to begin with a quite
general statement: Deuteronomy is composed as a speech
of Moses to the people. 1 That is something striking and,
in fact, unique, in the law books of the Old Testament.
Both the Book of the Covenant and the Holiness Code, as
well as the laws of the Priestly Document, purport to be
utterances of God to Moses, Disregarding the Book of the
Covenant, since it was obviously not composed as an
utterance of God, and the subsequent adaptation has had
absolutely no effect on the corpus itself, the picture of the
Priestly Document, viewed as a whole, is as follows:
i. Jahweh addresses Moses. 2. The decrees received are
then transmitted by Moses either (a) to the Israelites or

(F) to Aaron. In the latter case, which is less frequent, it is
normally a question of instructions pertaining to ritual
celebration, the observance of which is incumbent upon the
2
priesthood alone. Here too, of course, only the minority
1
far as literary criticism is concerned, we too regard the parts in
As
the singular number from 6.4 onwards as the oldest constituent of
Deuteronomy. But the way in which the question of the original form
of the book (TJrdeuteronomium) is often put seems to us much too
exclusive (quite apart from any confidence in the possibility of sifting
out this corpus down to verse and half verse by literary means). This
question involves a conception of 'redaction', which it then equates
with a complete state (and then, where possible, with the law-book of
Josiah); but this draws far too much upon our western ways of
authorship. We
still know very little about the origin and the stages
of expansion of such old sacral works. Can we then really maintain

that Urdeuteronomium arose as a 'private writing* (Steuernagel Das :
Deuteronomiutn, 2nd ed., p. 15)?

2
e.g., Lev. 6.8 ff; 10.8 ff; 16; Num. 8.1 ffAn utterance of God
ii
of the individual units themselves are actually composed as

direct speech of God, that is, in the I-style and with the
statutes couched in
designation Ye. The greater part are
the impersonal style and speaking of Jahweh in the third
person. In the Holiness Code,
viewed as a whole, Jahweh
likewise addresses Moses. But in detail the situation is
rather complicated here. One part of the statutes is direct
speech of God in the I-style, while other units are formu-

lated impersonally and speak of Jahweh in the third person.
The Sit^ im Leben of these two classes is also obviously
radically different. On the
one hand, there are ordinances
that can at once be recognised as technical instructions for
drawn for consideration in special
priests: they are up
cases only; on the other, commandments broken up by
and arranged in
parenesis (i.e. by hortatory material)
series reveal the cult assembly, where they were presented
to the people, as their place of origin. In divergence from
Deuteronomy, however, these commandments broken up
of God.
by parenesis also appear as direct speech
In this sketch is involved a number of questions that
have to do with the criticism of classes of material (gattungs-
geschichtliche Fragen\
and they would require to be followed
up. Let the sketch suffice here in the first instance to
demonstrate the contrast, for Deuteronomy is different: it
is definitely not an utterance of God.
1
We saw a moment
ago in the Priestly Document and the Holiness
Code that
Jahweh gave instructions to Moses (and Aaron)
as the
proper recipients of cultic revelation.

But then the divine
decrees were transmitted to the laity. (Transmission
came
to is found only in Lev. 10.8; Num. 18.1 ff, 8 ff, 20 ff.

Aaron On
occasion an injunction is given to Moses and Aaron together
without
the command to transmit it: Lev. 13; 14.33 ff; Num. 19. Here too it
is, of course, only matters of purely priestly observance.
1
The few exceptions, already noticed by Klostermann (Pentateuch,
N.F., pp. 1 86 ff) in which Jahweh and not Moses is the speaker 7.4;
11.15-15; 17.3; 28.20; 294f are to be regarded
as something like
stylisticaberrations and carry absolutely no weight in face of the whole.
12
Sacral Traditions and Form-Criticism
in question, of course, only with specific subject-matters.)

Now the method of transmission varied greatly. Sometimes
proclamation of the commandments at
possibly at the
the Feast of Tabernacles the priest simply acted as the
spokesman of the Godhead and transmitted the injunctions
to the listening community as direct speech of God. But
that will only have happened now and again at the high
points of cultic celebrations and, moreover., only in a later

period. There was a different form of address to the com-
munity used when the divine decrees were issued through
the medium of priestly interpretation that is, when they
were broken up to a certain extent by priestly parenesis.
Now Deuteronomy is obviously of this nature; it is a divine
charge of the kind given to the lay community at second

hand. That in itself explains why all that is ritual in the
technical sense, so far as it concerns only the cult personnel,
is absent.
As is the case with so many manifestations of Israel's
cultic life, information in the records about the way in
which such instruction in the law was carried out is almost
completely wanting. One passage, however, deserves par-
ticular attention, namely Neh. 8.7 f. In it we have the two
things : the direct proclamation of the will of Jahweh as it
was made on special occasions, before the whole cultic
community too, and then the instruction at second hand;
"But Jeshua, Bani, Sherebiah the Levites instructed

. . .
(D*T3/9) the people in the law, while the people stood in

their place. And they read from the book of the law of
God interpreted^?) and explained (*?5&? Dl^) it, so that
they understood what was read.'
Unfortunately two difficulties stand in the way of the under-

standing of the passage. In spite of Schaeder's brilliant
1
argument, it is still a question whether the expression
1
H. H. Schaeder: Esra der Scbrriber, Tubingen, 1930, pp. 51
is to be understood, like 2faQ9 in Ezra 4.18, as the

Hebraised form of the King's Aramaic term used in the
Persian diplomatic language. 1 If it is, then the meaning
would be that the Hebrew original was rendered into
c
Aramaic. But who did the reading? Whether Ezra (v. 3)
or the Levites (v.not perfectly clear/ 2 The text is
8) is
heavily overloaded, and even to assume interpolation by
the Chronicler does not remove all the roughnesses. And
5
even if the passage about the Levites work of instruction
is an addition by the Chronicler, who was specially inter-
ested in the Levites' duties, we still cannot be expected to

believe that the ad hoc invention of something completely
novel is implied. On the contrary, this was certainly not
the firstoccasion, or the only one, on which the Levites
gave instruction in the Law in the way here represented.
After all, for a function of the kind an approved technique
and a special tradition are required, and it is not to be
presumed that a beginning was made with these only in
the time of Ezra. Besides, we have to bear in mind that
there are other passages in the Chronicler's history where
the Levites are designated as 'those who instructed the
people* (Q*T5!?). But I admit that if we are to have any
3
right to understand Deuteronomy along the lines of an

interpretation on the Law for the laity,that would have to
be demonstrated in the first instance from the book itself.
We begin this aspect of our investigation by ob-
shall
serving the class of material to which Deuteronomy,

viewed as a whole, belongs. The remarkable way in which
parenesis, laws, binding by covenant, blessing and cursing
follow upon one another points (just like the Sinai pericope
in Ex. 19-24) to the course of a great cultic celebration,
namely, the old festival of the renewal of the Covenant at

Shechem. Deuteronomy in its present form is undoubtedly
1
O. Eissfeldt: TheoL Lit.-Ztg., 1931, pp. 243
2
A. Bertholet: Die tucker Esra und Nehemia, Tubingen, 1902, in loc.
3 2 Chron. 35.3.
14
Sacral Traditions and form-Criticism
a literary production, but it still bears the stamp of a cultic

form that has exercised an extraordinary influence on its
style.
1
Now this suggests a definite line of interpretation
for the component parts as well. Only to-day are be- we
ginning to see how accurate Klostermann's diagnosis of
the situation was years ago, when he declared that Deut.
12 S was c
not a law book
3
, but a 'collection of material for
the public proclamation of the Law'. 2 So our task is to
take the laws in Deuteronomy too and consider them still
more critically from the standpoint of rhetoric and homi-
letics as, indeed, is particularly approprkte to the pare-
netic form in which even the so-called law-code itself in
chapters 12-26 appears. For, actually, the most elementary

difference between the Book of the Covenant and Deuter-
onomy a difference that is particularly striking just because

the two books do contain so much common material lies
in the fact thatDeuteronomy is not divine law in codified
form, but preaching about the commandments at least,
the commandments appear in a form where they are very
much interspersed with parenesis.
Let us take for an example the passage about the Release. 3
"At the end of seven years thou shalt make a release"
(15.1). That is an ordinance belonging to the very oldest
divine law; its validity is not under discussion. But it
requires to be interpreted, it needs to be made relevant to
the special needs of the audience. So we now see how, in
what follows, the institution which, as such, is taken for
granted as known, is immediately given a new form and
adapted to new conditions. At the same time, we can take
v. 2
*
"And this is the manner of the release . . .
in the way Horst does, as pre-deuteronomic "legal inter-

1
von Rad: Das formgeschichtliche Problem des Hexateucb, Stuttgart,
1938, pp. 23
2 N.F. (1907) p. 344.
A. Klostermann: Pentateuch,
3
Horst: Das Vrivilegrecbt Jatwes, Gottingen, 1930, pp. 59, 65.
15
pretation*. The impersonal formulation of the clause would

favour that. But the manner in which, from v. 3 onwards,
the single points in question are unfolded and explained
is clear
enough:
5'Only if thou hearken unto the voice of Jahweh thy
.
God, to observe to do all these commandments which I

command thee this day, then Jahweh thy God will bless
thee, as he hath promised thee. ..." 7. 'If there be among
you a poor man thou shalt not harden thine heart and
. . .
shut thine hand from thy poor brother; 8. But thou shalt
'
open thine hand wide and shalt gladly lend to him. . . .
9. 'Beware that the

wicked thought come not up in thy
* c
heart. ... 10. But thou shalt surely give him, and when
thou givest him, thine heart shall not be grieved, for
because of this thing Jahweh thy God shall bless thee', etc.
Are we to take this as legal diction, these words of
exhortation, warning and promise, which drive the demands
home upon the hearer's conscience in the most personal
way ? It is law preached. It was in some such way as this
law which Nehemiah had
that the statutes of the old divine
at first only read out were brought home and expounded
to the people by the Levites. At the same time, the passage
still makes it
apparent that the actual new application of
the old law of the release to the sphere of the law of debt
is not the work of the preachers; v. 2 is certainly pre-
deuteronomic. When old commandments were thus brought
up to date, the work was certainly done by people of higher
authority than preaching Levites. The latter's special
achievement lay solely in the deliberate intensifying of the
meaning, and the definite application to the individual con-
science. Thus, a certain loss of sublimity which the com-
mandment suffered through being applied to the sphere of
law of debt,1 was compensated in another direction.
1
The fundamental norm lying behind the demand for a sacral
fallow year 'the land is mine' (Lev. 25.23) cannot be applied mutatis
mutandis to loans, etc.
16
Deuteronomic criticism has, of course, for long been

working at the separation of the older material from the
later.But Horst recently introduced a fruitful viewpoint
with his distinction between the old statutes on the one
hand and the later legal
interpretations on the other. Ad-
mittedly, the fact that statutes with a definite centralising
tendency stand side by side with others that are completely

unaffected by this aim was a difficulty to which Oest-
reicher and Welch were the first really to draw attention. 1
Now, however, it is as clear asnoonday that the apodeictic
sanctifying of the firstlings demanded by Jahweh in Deut.
15.19, for example, has no knowledge of the demand for
centralisation. But w. 20-23 interpret the commandment
from the point of view of the new demand. A similar state
of affairs is found in the passage concerning the tithe: 14.22
is the old statute, w.
23-27 the interpretation.
2
It has
already been emphasised that these interpretations are not

to be understood as legal sections or supplementary laws,
but as homiletics. The definite preaching the urgent style,
form of address, as well as the whole
of the argument
style
point, in respect of class of material, to a different sphere
from that of law. 3 Horst, however, draws too fine a dis-
tinction with his division into single literary strands, and
the criteria which he names for determining the age of a
strand in question are often not at all convincing. But
above all else, his derivation of Deuteronomy from a single
series of commandments only can hardly be right. Now

that Alt has shown us how these apodeictic series are to be
4
taken, a keen eye can still penetrate behind the homiletic
dress and sort out materials of many different kinds.
Between the order to appoint judges and officers in 1 6.1 8
1
A. Welch: The Code of Deuteronomy, London, 1924.
2
Horst: op. cit., pp. 87, 99.
8
On this preaching style cp. L. Kohler: Die bebrdische Rtcbtsgetneinde.
Jahresbericht der Universitat Zurich, 1930/31, pp. 17 J. Hempel: Die
alihebrttische ILiteratur, p. 140.
4
A. Alt.: Die Urspriinge des israelitiscben TL&cbts, Leipzig, 1934.
and the admonition to execute righteous judgement in

16.20 is inserted a small section obviously derived from an
old exemplar for judges :
Thou shalt not wrest judgement.

Thou shalt not respect persons.
Thou shalt not take a bribe.
The fragment immediately takes its place alongside the

short apodeictic series in Ex. 23.1 & and is certainly not an
1
independent coinage of the author of Deuteronomy.
Immediately thereafter follow cultic ordinances; if we
detach the unimportant parenetic phraseology, we have the
following :
rnn; nap ^x psr ?? n^s *j*?~Bfl tf? 16 21>
nln?
ma la TO n^s nt2?i nia? nln^ nain-^^ 17,1
Thou not plant thee any asheray any tree near

shalt
unto the altar of Jahweh.
Thou shalt not set up unto thee any masseba, which
Jahweh hateth.
Thou shalt not sacrifice unto Jahweh any bullock or
sheep wherein is blemish.
It has always excited comment that Deuteronomy con-
tains a command not to plant an ashera beside Jahweh's
2
altar. It is obviously pre-deuteronomic., and not as
yet
discarded because the demand for centralisation is pre-
supposed. Of the three statutes Horst would allow only
1
For the exemplar for judges in Ex. 23.1 ff:
cp, Alt, op. ctt. y
p. 5 1.
2
e.g. Steuernagel: Komm. (znd ed.), in kco\ Sternberg: Z.D.M.G.,
1928, pp. 125
18
to rank as old. 1 But the reasons he alleges against a

i j.i
pre-deuteronomic origin are unconvincing. Besides, the

statutes are homogeneous to a degree that makes it
impos-
sible to separate them; what is true of one is true of the
others as well. In respect of subject, it is a
fragment of an
apodeictic series inculcating cultic obligations. It reaches
back apparently to old times when individuals were still
allowed very considerable freedom in the form they gave
their cult. In the time of Deuteronomy that form had been
long universally removed from individuals* free disposition,

and consequently from the arbitrament of their caprice, by
the priesthood.
Another series can certainly be detached from 22.5-11 :
? nsjrtf ? 22 5a>
? 10
TJDSJE? #3*?r) tf
1
? n
A woman shall not wear men's clothes.
A man shall not put on women's garments.
Thou shalt not sow thy vineyard with two kinds.
Thou shalt not yoke ox and ass together in the plough.
Thou shalt not clothe thyself with a garment made of
wool and flax.
The statutes are separated from one another to some

extent by regulations of a different kind, but their uniformity
hi style and content argues that they originally formed a
self-contained series, the more so in that the regulations
which come between have a different style. But above all
else, the series is strictly self-contained in theme; it checks

It is not, of course, possible to say
allperturbatio sacrorum.
that such laws had lost all objectivity for the writer of
1
Horst: op. cit., pp. 98
Deuteronomy, for cultic norms of the kind retain an

astonishing vitality even in times that are very changed.
But a time in which statutes like these are grouped in
special apodeictic series for this formation of series is
certainly not the outcome of later collection by a redactor
is obviously a time in which men are still conscious of
serious cultic risks in this sphere, and, whenever else it was,

it was certainly not that of the writer of Deuteronomy.
Without exhausting the material, let us take one more

1
series from 23.1 ff:
rns tzrK n-tf? 23,1
irr *?nj?3 7092? nnrpi nsn-^p Ktoj
Kin
rrn nr 11
(A man shall not marry his father's wife.)

A man who is wounded in the stones, or has his
privy member cut off, shall not enter into the

congregation of Jahweh.
A bastard shall not enter into the congregation of
Jahweh.
An Ammonite or a Moabite shall not enter into the
congregation of Jahweh.
Thou shalt not abhor an Edomite, for he is thy
brother.
Thou shalt not abhor an Egyptian, for thou wast
a stranger in his land.
It isquestionable if 23.1 (E.V., 22.30) belonged to what
follows it; the vetse is rather out of line with the rest of
the group in theme. Still, it opens the series now. There
is no doubt, however, that w. 2, 3, 4 and 8
(E.V., i, 2, 3
1
The numbering is ftom the Hebrew, not the English, Bible.
20
and 7) present a self-contained group that is certainly very

old. The series sets authoritative limits to the Kahaly the
1
assembly of full citizens, and defines its relation to the
neighbouring peoples. So much for the apodeictic series
of which the writer of Deuteronomy makes use.
In contrast with them, the number of conditional statutes
broken up in the preaching style is insignificant. That is
understandable, for the Mishpatim were anything but a
traditional material used by the priests. The only actual
case where the procedure has been adopted and com-
parison with an older formulation is possible, is the law
concerning the Hebrew in 15.12-18. comparison with A
the precise and strictly objective formulation found in
the Book of the Covenant (Ex. 21.2-11) shows that in
Deuteronomy it is no longer a matter of a "law", a legal
definition. The very composition as personal address
gives
the whole thing a completely different stamp. And then:
'Remember that thou too wast a slave in the land of
c
Egypt/ thou shalt not think it hard when thou sendest

. . .
c
him away from thee free', and Jahweh thy God will
. . .
bless thee in all that thou doest/

What place is there for language like that in a law ? This is
the style used in addressing a 'thou' who is present and
listening.
On the other hand, there are not a few conditional laws 2
that have been adapted to suit the whole simply by being
turned into the personal style characteristic of Deuteronomy,
the only further alteration being the introduction through-
out of little homiletic flourishes. Examples are 21.22-23
(death 22.6-7 (taking of birds' nests), 22.8
by hanging),
(providing balustrades on roofs), 23.22-24 (E.V., 21-23)
(payment of vows), 23.25-26 (E.V., 24-25) (eating in vkie-
1
L. Rost: Die Vorstufe von Kirche und Sjnagoge im A.T., Stuttgart,
pp. 3 1 f-
2 On the distinction between apodeictic and conditional statutes see
A. Alt: Die Ursprttnge des israelitischen TLtcbts, Leipzig, 1934.
21
yards and cornfields), 24.10-12 (retention of the pledge),

24.19 (forgotten sheaves). In these instances, the fact that
the cases are trivial or of rare occurrence may have been the
justification for presenting the material so briefly.
It is to be
noticed, however, that we also come across pure conditional
laws in Deuteronomy that is, legal formulations where
there is no breaking up with parenesis. Examples are
21.15-17 (rights of inheritance of sons), 21.18-22 (the death
penalty for a disobedient son), 22.13-29 (commandments
concerning sexual matters), 24.1-4 (divorce), 25.1-3 (beating
1
by the magistrate), 25.5-10 (the law concerning levirate
marriage). The fact that odd statutes have been taken into
Deuteronomy and left without interpretation need not cause
surprise. But since they appear exclusively towards the end
of Deuteronomy, and since, further, what is characteristic
of the main part of the book are the great homiletic passages,
we may certainly conclude that the whole has been sub-
mitted to a process of redaction.
But two further specifically deuteronomic classes of
material fall to be mentioned. We find the one again in
those parenetic 'laws' which offer a broad thematic treat-
ment of a subject without having a discernible basis in any
old legal statute. The law concerning the prophet in 13.1-6
(E.V., 1-5) and the law of the king in 17.14-20 would fall
to be reckoned amongst them; but the decrees concerning
defection to idolatry in 13.7-19 (E.V., 6-18) and the pro-
hibition of Canaanite divination and the promise of the
mediating prophet in 18.9-22 belong to them also; prob-

ably, too, the section about the cities of refuge in 19.1-13,
which cannot be taken as the interpretation of an old legal
statute. Now these are the sections in Deuteronomy which
are at farthest remove from what is
legal and for which the
conventional designation of 'laws' is
utterly unsuitable.
The subjects are also to some extent e.g., the king, pro-
1
The laws comprised by 24.1-4 and 25.1-3 issue somewhat inaptly
in a personal parenetic phrase in thek last sentence.
22
Sacral Traditions and 'Form-Criticism
phets subjects concerning which old norms could not

possibly have been extant. What we have in these cases is
sermon-like utterances of the writer of Deuteronomy upon
questions which were vital in his own time.
The second group of laws which we still want briefly to
delimit is essentially of a different kind. Old traditional
material certainly lies at their root, but it is not material of
a legal kind, at any rate not of the kind composed in
conditional or apodeictic form. The section dealing with
the procedure in the case of an unknown murder, 29.1-9,
unquestionably contains very old traditional material; the
same is true of the regulation in 26.1-11 dealing with the
cultic celebration at the offering of the first-fruits. Verses
1-9 of chapter 20 form a group by themselves in them the
:
writer of Deuteronomy has taken up what are obviously

very old norms from the Holy War and made them relevant
to his own time. The transmitters of these traditions were
certainly not the law-courts which sat at the gate; we could
sooner think of the shrines as the custodians of such old
prescriptions coming down from early times. For what the
units here mentioned have in common is that, in parenetic
form, they make obligatory on the present not any norms of
a legal kind, but old cultic usages.
If we review the series of homiletic interpretations which
Deuteronomy offers and the list could certainly still be
expanded and improved then the wide range of the book
emerges. In this respect Deuteronomy bears a strong
eclectic stamp again in striking contrast with P., which is
compendious apodeictic series of commandments and cul-
:
tic and ritual toroth of the priests deriving from the speci-
material, the transmitters

fically priestly tradition; legal
of which were the courts of lay judges who
sat at the gates;
ancient traditions and customs once observed by the army

in the Holy War all this and much else was available for
the Deuteronomic preacher, and at his disposal for homi-
letic use. In face of this, the complete Deuteronomy must
23
be regarded as a comparatively late document. It is true

that the Book of the Covenant had already brought apo-
deictic and conditional statutes into literary co-ordination,
thus relating two cycles of material which lay far apart in
actual life. But the basis of the traditions which Deuter-
onomy took up is very much broader. The comprehensive

way in which it revives the old norms of the Holy War is
itself sufficient to show that Deuteronomy lays claim to
departments of the people's life that lay quite outside what
the Book of the Covenant set its seal upon. 1 But more than
anything else, it is the perfect freedom with which it handles
the old traditions and intersperses them with homiletics
that is something completely new compared with the Book
of the Covenant. 2 At all events, the writer of Deuteronomy
is in a
position where he had access to traditions of extremely
varied provenance, and where he had an authoritative
interpretation of them and a presentation adapted to the
times. Where may that have been?
1
That makes it very questionable if D. can be designated simply
'the most considerable .
priestly collection of laws' (G. Holscher,
. .
Z.A.W., 1922, p. 255).

2
This activity of the Levites is therefore to be clearly distinguished
from the priestly giving of torotb, as Begrich explains the latter (in
Werden und Wesen des A.T., 1936, pp. 63 fF), and of which P. speaks in
Lev. 10.10 Giving of torotb comprises instruction in the distinction
between sacred and secular, and clean and unclean. Its general form is
that of a command in which God speaks in the first person.
CHAPTER TWO
FORM-CRITICISM OF THE
HOLINESS CODE
BEFORE tackling the Deuteronomic question proper, let us
now, with a view to broadening the basis of our discussion,
survey the Holiness Code, though only in regard to the
question just touched upon. It is perfectly clear that,
because of its pronounced parenetic character, the Holiness
Code stands much nearer to Deuteronomy than does the
Priestly Document. On closer inspection, however, there
at once appear two which we would first of all
differences
simply record as such.

1. The Holiness Code is not, like
Deuteronomy, instruc-
tion for the community throughout, but it comprises a
constant alternation of instruction for the community and
instruction for priests. The introductory formulae on the
3
one hand: 'speak to the children of Israel and say to them ,
on the other: 'speak to Aaron and say* clearly differentiate

the materials according to their content. The greater part
of them are addressed to the Israelites, a smaller part concerns
the priests only. For example, Lev. 22.2 ff contains all kinds
of ritual matter having to do with the eating of the gifts
brought by the community, Lev, 21.1 ff instruction about
the cleanness and uncleanness of priests matters, that is,
which obviously did not require to be brought to the notice
of the general public. In a few instances only Aaron and
Israel are addressed together, and that happens in the case
of ordinances, the observance of which is obligatory alike
for clergy and community.
2. In its present form the Holiness Code taken as a whole
is presented as an utterance of God and not an address of
Moses. On closer inspection, however, a most complicated

Sections seen to be in
picture emerges in this respect.
actual fact utterances of God from the beginning do not at
all predominate. Rather is it plain to see that very many
25
texts have only been given the form of divine utterance at

a later date. If we disregard the form of address, which
<thou and 'y e '> we &*& that
5
constantly alternates between

the real facts are these. On the one hand, such passages
as
were originally composed as sermons have been redrafted
as utterances of God. On the other, it is ordinances

which
were originally couched in perfectly impersonal terms
which have been subjected to this transformation; and this
has in fact been done mostly simply by making God speak
in the first
person in the introductory and concluding sen-
Indeed, it is the repeated I am Jahweh'
C
that helps
tences.
the Holiness Code to give the now dominant impression
of being direct speech of God.
The degree of parenetic interspersion varies, of course,
in detail. Lev. 18 exhibits a form which is already well
known to us from Deuteronomy: w. 2-5 contain a general
formal admonition to keep commandments, the substance
of which, to start with, is not more closely defined. At v, 6
we come to the itself. Its content is a rather long
corpus
seriesof commandments concerning sexual matters, now
formulated tersely and objectively in the <thou* form. The
conclusion in w. 24-30 makes another exhortation in
these commandments. Chapter 18 is
general terms to keep
therefore clearly a liturgical whole, or, to put it better, it is
still couched in the form used for liturgical
celebrations of
the kind. This is not gainsaid by the fact that the parenetic
sections at the beginning and the end are in the *y e? form,
c 3
while the corpus itself is in the thou form. The corpus is^ to
be interpreted in the sense that the statute in v. 6, which
alone is written in the *ye' form, presents the chief com-
mandment, properly speaking
nearly related to him by
'None approach any that
shall is
blood, to have sexual relations/
But the statutes in v. 7 ff are particular regulations explaining

this summary statute in detail in all its aspects.
26
Form-Criticism of the Holiness Code
The somewhat different with the well-known

situation is
cult law in chapter 17. Here v. 3 f sets forth the chief regu-
lation, properly speaking. Verses 5-7 add nothing in the
way of real amplification; they only give its reason and add
points of detail. A new commandment comes only with
v. 8 f. 3 deals with killing of animals in general, v. 8
If v.
deals with a specific sacrificial act: both make it necessary
to go to the shrine. Verse 10 brings a further chief norm,
forbidding any manner of eating of blood. In the very next

verses, 11-12, this is explained and expanded. The last
cultic commandment in the more restricted sense appears
in v. 13, (concerning beasts or fowl taken in hunting) ; v. 14
even is no longer on the same plane; it substantiates, and
in v. 1 5 f there is a further expansion.
Chapter 19 introduces us to an entirely different depart-

ment of instruction for the community. The passage is
particularly well known because of the high 'ethical'
demands with which it regulates the relationship of man
to man within the community. Although it is a rather
formless utterance of God as it stands before us now,
well-defined forms lying behind it are nevertheless easy
to recognise. They probably looked something like
this:
1 1
O ? U ** ~~
?!! tf?
Thou shalt not reap thy field into the corners.

Thou shalt not glean after thy harvest.
Thou shalt not gather thy vineyard bare.

Thou shalt not gather the fallen grapes of thy vine-
yard.
27
A slightly different series appears to begin at 19.11 :
12a
Ye shall not steal.

Ye shall not disavow.
Ye shall not lie.
Ye shall not swear falsely.
13b
1
2^)0 ^î?^"^ ? i4a
16a
16b
.3 UK hbn
Thou shalt not oppress thy neighbour.
Thou shaltnot rob.
Thou shalt not keep the
wages of a hireling with
thee the morning.
till
Thou shalt not curse a deaf man.

Thou not put anything in a blind man's
shalt
way,
(but thou shalt fear thy God).
Thou shalt not do unjustly in judgement.
28
form-Criticism of the Holiness Code
Thou shalt not respect the person of the unimportant.

Thou shalt not favour the powerful, (thou shalt judge
thy neighbour justly).
Thou shalt not go about as a slanderer among thy
people.
Thou not proceed against thy neighbour's life.
shalt
Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart, (thou
shalt set thy neighbour right, so that thou
bring-
est not sin upon thee because of him).
Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against
thy fellow-countryman, (but thou shalt love thy
neighbour as thyself).
It is fascinating to how the preacher, like Luther
watch
in his expositions of the Commandments, has sometimes
on his own account given the prohibitions positive form,
and so intensified them. The procedure as such is already
familiar to us from the fourth and fifth commandments in
the Decalogue. It means that there was an age which the
negative style no longer satisfied, because to the more
mature understanding of the later generations it was not
adequate to describe the whole compass of Jahweh's will
for man. The whole section is rounded off with a parenetic
statute in general terms, (v. i9a), with which clearly any
such recital of commandments ended.
Another series where the emphasis is exclusively cultic
can easily be extracted from w. 19.26-28. We take i9b with
it because of its similarity:
? 19b
"rn
.. T^
.*
n*?sr~" tf
1
?
Thou shalt not let two kinds of cattle gender.

Thou shalt not sow thy field with two kinds of seed.
Thou shalt not put on a garment woven of two dif-
ferent kinds of thread.
29
? 26b
26c
DKS 1D?n tf *? 27a
28a
Ye shall not eat anything together with the blood.

Ye shall not practise soothsaying.
Ye shall not practise augury.
Ye shall not cut off the corners of the hair of your
head.
Ye shall not trim the corners of your beard.
Ye shall not make cuttings in your flesh for the dead.
Ye shall not print a mark upon you.
In w. 29-36 of chapter 19 too we clearly find miscel-
laneous fragments of such series of commandments. Verse
37 then brings once again the usual concluding
formula:
Keep my statutes and do according
to them.
These statutes may may not
or have had some such form
as this originally; they may be parts of several series which
have been compiled here; the nlfT? "US which sounds especi-
ally frequently
in them may be due
to the redactor of the
Holiness Code, or it may well have belonged to the original
form and then spread from here throughout the Holiness
Code: but there can certainly be no doubt about the funda-
mental conclusion.
One question may however be asked. Is what we have
here really series in the old sense as in Deut. 27.15 ff or
Ex. 20.2 ff, or is it not rather a case of an undoubtedly old
form being employed by a more or less late generation ? If
that were so, then the SiP^ im Leben for these units would
3
not be the rare cultic festival

following its grand liturgical
course, but rather the occasions of community-instruction
of a popular character carried out by the Levites. There is
in favour of this
assumption first and foremost the fact
that, as regards contents, it is not a question here of the
few elementary commandments which constitute the com-
munity's but of standards of a non-differentiated
life,
nature,
which are also, in part,very lofty. Nevertheless it must be
observed that the style as utterance of God is
retained, and
this circumstance dissuades us in turn from
making too
wide a separation of these series from the old classical
liturgical form. Nevertheless, there is a difference between
the Decalogue and
Dodecalogue series on the one hand
and these series taken from
Deuteronomy and the Holiness
Code on the other, and this enriches our of the
knowledge
old Jahweh cult. Alongside the basic series of command-
ments which outline the sum total of
Jahweh's demands
upon the individual in as few statutes as possible, there are
others which refer only to definite
spheres of life, and which
accordingly have an essentially narrower range of subjects.
Thus, we found in Deut. 23 a series concerned with the
membership of the /Hj?, and in Deut. 22 a series, which
gives the impression of being particularly old, concerned
with the forbidden perturbatio sacrorum. In Lev.
19 there
were ancient regulations concerning the harvest, etc. It is
impossible to deny their cultic character; only these units
would not have had such an extraordinary cultic
setting as
we may assume for the Decalogue and the Dodecalogue.
Lev. 20.1-8 is probably to be taken as a unit; it deals with
sacrifice to Moloch. Verse 2 contains the chief command-
ment, properly speaking. It is followed by a long admoni-

tion making clear to the
community Jahweh's relentless
severity towards transgressors ofthis commandment; v. 8
gives the usual conclusion, Keep my statutes etc.

. . .
,
Verse 9 begins what is in fact something new, namely,

a succession of commandments of
very diverse kinds which
3*
are shown in turn to be members of a series by their simi-
larity in style (they

begin 1#8 &$ and end n/W nl/3). In
the analysis no word has been added on in principle, and
only the expansions which break the regular pattern
left out.
(nar ala) laarnsi i'3*Tnx Vppj; n#g tzrx aft*

20,9
na^r nla
naT nia
insn ft$rn$
*i
h
ntfs ETK
3^T n^x^nKy
^
25tzr nt2?'x B^K
10
n
T . .. .
y .
'nav nta* ^K
injs'fig 25^? ifjs
12
nfK 5?t^^ "i^trix astz^ 11^^ ^K

S 13
fi/ar nla*
14
(nar nla) n^K-nî n^'n^ n^ -ngs Bftj
1
nto nri33
T**I* ITllw?
inaDt^ * n^K tz^^K is
nla) 1a$~H3-1x
nla) nj^ mfK-nn: ns^'?"i^ ^
naT
1
20
'nia Inii^n^; 13^ "i^s ^""K
THK
1
nla 11*5 B^ 21
1
nt??K-nK rii? :
(Whoso curseth his father or his mother shall die the
death.)
Whoso committed! adultery with his neighbour's
wife shall die the death.
Whoso lieth with the wife of his father shall die the
death.
Whoso lieth with his daughter-in-law shall die the
death.
Whoso lieth with a man as one lieth with a woman
shall die the death.
Whoso marrieth a wife and her mother as well shall
die the death.
Whoso hath intercourse with a beast shall die the
death.
32
Whoso marrieth his sister, the daughter of his father

or his mother, shall die the death.
Whoso lieth with a wife at the time of her unclean-
ness shall die the death.
Whoso lieth with the wife of his uncle shall die the
death.
Whoso marrieth the wife of his brother shall die the
death.
Over against the present text, only a few amplifying obser-

vations are omitted, and further, in a few instances, the
n/ffP nlO which had fallen out when the strict series for-
mation was broken up, has been restored; finally, in

w. 12 and 13 the penalty clause has been turned into the
singular. The text at present puts the woman on the same
footing of responsibility that clearly corresponds with the
:
outlook of a more mature period.

Thus we have once more a block of old commandments
concerning sexual matters.
1
Then as conclusion in this
case more extensive w.
22-24 g*ve a final parenesis,
which in this instance clearly takes its key from the pre-
ceding series of commandments uncleanness makes the
land unclean; it was because of such sins that the Canaanites
Verses 25-27 are some further
lost their land. isolated
commandments which have been tacked on.
Lev. 21 presents instructions for priests w. ib-4 is a unit
:
by itself dealing with defilement for the dead. The series of

prohibitions which follows in w. 5-7 is in a rather different
style. In neither section is there the divine I nor an address.
Not till v. 8 do we have an admonition (addressed to the
community) to regard the priest as holy. Verse 9 is an
addition dealing with the case of unchastity in the daughter
of a priest. The directions for the high priest in w. 10-15
are once more wholly in the impersonal 'he' form. The
1
Is it by chance that the series comprises ten commandments con-
cerning sexual matters ?
G 33
verses concerning the bodily defects which debar a man

from active service as a priest (w. 16-23) are in the same
form. The
*thou* in the first half of the first verse and the
personal conclusion in the second half of the last verse
5
('
. that
. .he profane not my sanctuaries ) quite obviously
betray themselves as later adaptation.
The analysis of chapter 22 has little to contribute to our
purpose either. Verses 2-16 are again pure teaching for
priests, and the composition as an utterance of God in the
first and last sentences, (as well as in w. 3 and 8 f), comes
from a later hand. Verses 17-25, laying down that animals

offered in sacrifice must be free from blemish, are addressed
to Aaron and the community. Here the *y e? form is prob-
ably original. Jahweh is only spoken of in the third

person. The same holds true for the decrees in w. 26-30.
Finally, these instructions too for the priests and the com-
munity close with a general parenesis which, in keeping with
the main contents of the whole passage, is addressed here
to the priests. This was clearly an integral part the com-
munication of divine regulations issues in a parenesis.
We can deal with the rest of the chapters of the Holiness
Code quite briefly. None of the various units in chapter 23
dealing with regulations concerning the festivals was
originally composed as utterance of Jahweh; there are still
too obvious traces of the older form which spoke of Jahweh
in the third person. But they were teaching for the com-
munity, although we do
not find, as was not infrequently
the case elsewhere, a main statute of community teaching
set down to be expounded and explained. In chapter 24,
the section made up of w. 1-14 and v. 23 has for long now
been separated off as belonging to P. In w. 15-22 there are
some old apodeictic statutes turned into the parenetic form.
The sabbath of the seventh year is the subject of 25.2-7,
(though the section may be composite) ; w. 18-24 add a
1
general admonition, the purpose of which is to do away

1
Both sections contain not laws' but parenetic addresses.
34
with sceptical scruples. The regulation about the year of

jubilee in w. 8-13 fits badly into the present context, which
is the sabbath of the seventh
year; that suggests that this
was not its original setting. In w. 25-28 and 29-34 we have
two separate laws concerning the year of jubilee, both of
them casuistic and impersonal: their terse formulation re-
calls the best examples of the old conditional form. But we
could hardly bring ourselves to range them alongside these
as regards either age or subject. And, in
any case, w. 25-28
and 29-34 are not teaching for the community. But teaching
for the community does follow in w. 35-38, which deal
quite generally with the prohibition against taking interest
from an Israelite. Any
special connection with the sabbath
of the seventh year or the year of jubilee is certainly not
apparent here.
There is much to be said for the conjecture which has
often been made that in the two last sections, w. 39-46 and
47-5 5, the adaptation to the year of jubilee arises only from
a late redaction. If that is so, then we would have two
sermonic sections of teaching, (a) for the case in which an
Israelite has sold himself into slavery with another Israelite
because of debt, and () for the case in which an Israelite is
in the same condition with a stranger. Both pieces of
teaching were originally derived from the institution of the

sabbath of the seventh year.
When we review our results, we discover that the Holi-
ness Codecontains for the most part teaching for the com-
munity in parenetic form, and that this teaching is based
on various older statutes. The most conspicuous part of
*
this given material was the various apodeictic command-

ment series which sometimes issued in a final parenesis. (It
is not easy to account for their later transformation into
direct utterance of Jahweh, a transformation imposed upon
the parenetic material too, and even upon material that was
in the impersonal style to begin with. In this respect
Deuteronomy has obviously preserved the purer form,
35
which was perhaps the older, for parenesis only uses what
is given, which, as such, is not direct speech of Jahweh.)
None which have
the less, as a collection of older statutes
been interspersed with parenesis, the Holiness Code is very
closely akin to Deuteronomy. The parenetic style is thus
not peculiar to Deuteronomy, and so it is not a suitable
starting-point for an investigation of the special nature of
Deuteronomy and its provenance. Nevertheless, there are,
of course, plenty of differences to be found.
CHAPTER THREE
DEUTERONOMY'S 'NAME THEOLOGY 3
AND THE PRIESTLY DOCUMENT'S

'KABOD' THEOLOGY
DEUTERONOMY makes appearance at a definite point in
its
the history of Israel's faith. It makes its

appearance as a
finished, mature, beautifully proportioned and theologi-
cally clear work. Because of these characteristics it is in all
circumstances to be taken as, in one respect, the final
product
of a long and extremely complex development. At a rela-
tively late date it gathers together practically the whole of
the assets of the faith of Israel, re-sifting them and
purifying
them theologically. The most varied groups of traditions
are harmonised to one another in and welded together
it,
into as complete and perfect unity
can well be conceived.
as
(In this respect, as in others, it is comparable with John's

Gospel in the New Testament corpus?) On the other side,
incalculable influences have proceeded from it; we can
indeed follow the broad stream of Deuteronomic tra-
dition in the exilic and post-exilic age much more clearly
than that which issues ostensibly from the Priestly Docu-
ment. 1 Deuteronomy is the beginning of a completely new
epoch in Israel. In every respect, therefore, Deuteronomy
is to be designated as the middle
point of the Old Testament.
The question of its derivation is possibly the most difficult
in the history of the Old Testament traditions. We said
that it was to be understood as a final product. And yet,
in view of its sudden appearance in history, it has been
correctly apparently &nara>p d^rcop KOI
described as
2
ayeweaAoVqros. seeking to answer the question of
In
its
provenance, we must proceed with great caution; on
the one side, we must bring ourselves to cut loose from all
1 Von Rad: Das Geschichtsbild des chronistischen Werkes, Stuttgart,
930, passim.
2 W. Eichrodt: Neve Kirchliche Zeitschrift, 3, 1921, p. 41.
37
traditional and fixed views, and yet avoid all arbitrary re-
constructions. We shaE attempt in what follows to note
characteristics of Deuteronomy
briefly the most outstanding
which are, in our view, certain and palpable.
How and where will Israel, which is, in fact, only ap-
have communion with
proaching her own consolidation,
Jahweh? How and where will her intercourse
with the
God by whom she was conscious of being chosen, be con-
summated? It is well known that Deuteronomy gives this
the whole existence of Israel
question, on which plainly
will choose a place
depended, a definite answer Jahweh
to 'cause' his name to 'dwell there' (]5?r?) or to 'put'
(D
1
!^) his name there. In contrast with the later Deuter-

onomistic histories, Deuteronomy never speaks of the city
1
of Jerusalem, but only of the place (Dip?) at which the

name will dwell. It has often been assumed that by the latter
term Jerusalem was thought of from the very beginning;
that is, however, only one possibility. The idea of the
name as the characteristic form in which Jahweh reveals
himself is not in itself anything new we have 'only to
think of the law of the altar in Ex. 20.24. But what is
decidedly new is the assumption of a constant
and almost
material presence of the name at the shrine. Earlier refer-
ences speak more loosely of the name, in such a way that
its relationship with the human world is much
easy to less
c
define it cometh from afar', it has a place of its 'recording'
upon earth, it is
present in the Hirp ^tf?ft, etc.
2
As we see
it in Deuteronomy, it may be established in a particular
place, the conception

is definite and within fixed limits; it
verges closely upon a hypostasis. The Deuteronomic
theo-
logumenon of the name of Jahweh clearly holds a polemic

element, or, to put it better, is a theological corrective. It
is not Jahweh himself who is
present at the shrine, but only
1 i 2
Kings 11.36; 14.21; Kings 21.4, 7.
2 Ex. 20.24; 23.21.
Isa. 30.27;
'Nami Theology and 'Kabod* Theology
his name as the guarantee of his will to save; to it and it
only Israel has to hold fast as the sufficient form in which

Jahweh reveals himself. Deuteronomy is replacing the old
crude idea of Jahweh's presence and dwelling at the shrine
by a theologically sublimated idea. Can we show the tradi-
tions which Deuteronomy is taking up in so doing, and the
traditions from which it is dissociating itself?
The conception of Jahweh's presence at the shrine is so
well attested for us in the pre-deuteronomic period that
there is no need to give references in detail here. know We
itchiefly in connection with the Ark. Where the Ark is,
Jahweh is too ; in the older period the Ark was understood
as the throne of the invisibly present God. 1 But this con-
ception is vouched for so often elsewhere that it could be

thought of as the one and only conception obtaining in
ancient Israel. And yet that cannot have been the case. The
Priestly Document represents a totally different theology
here. The Tabernacle is neither the dwelling place of
Jahweh himself nor of his name, but the place on earth

where, for the time being, the appearance of Jahweh's glory
meets with his people. "I??^ ^DK, Tent of Meeting, is the
proper designation most corresponding with the facts. This

conception is carried through with great consistency in the
Priestly Document; the stories of the wanderings
in the
wilderness give several accounts of this wonderful way in
which Jahweh kept coming down. 2 What constitutes it is,
first, the descent of the Hln^ TO? upon the Tent, second,
the phenomenon of the cloud which accompanies it. The

fire phenomenon of the "T^-p, which emits a brightness too
great for the human

eye to look upon, is enveloped by the
cloud by means of which Jahweh himself graciously pro-
tects men from being destroyed by the form in which he
appears. We may say that this Kabod-Moed conception is
1 Num. 10.35 f; i Sam. 4.4 ff; 2 Kings 19.14 f; Jer. 3.16

f.
2
Ex. 16.10; 29.43; Num. 14.10; 16.19; 17.7; 20.6.
39
in very marked contrast to any conception of the dwelling

of a 0$ (even of the divine 05?). But
we must go on to say
that traces of a view presupposing Jahweh as present and
the Priestly Docu-
dwelling at the shrine are found within
ment also. Within the individual rituals there are exceed-
cult activities were performed
ingly frequent indications that
'before indeed, on occasion there is mention of
Jahweh';
1
an actual dwelling of Jahweh. Obviously these are cases
where older views have had a view derived from theological
reflection, which now claims to be standard, superimposed
upon them. At the same time, this Kabod-Moed conception

is in no wise a new creation of the Priestly Document,
but
interests of greater spiritu-
only the întroduction, in the
of a very old sacral tradition, the same thing, indeed,
ality,
as Deuteronomy did on its part when it
purified the theology
of old cultic traditions. In respect of these traditions the
be clear; it can hardly
provenance of Deuteronomy should
be judged as standing apart from the main stream of the
sacral traditions of Israel. This stream of tradition springs
for its part from the old amphictyony; its ^sacral
Israelite
centre was the cult of the holy Ark. Now it is significant
that Deuteronomy knows and mentions the Ark. Even if
its conception of the Ark is considerably different Deuter-
a for the tables of the law
onomy's view of it as receptacle
is an obvious 'demythologising' and rationalising of the
old view still, that very fact allows it to be seen how bound
Deuteronomy was to the Ark tradition, and how obliged
it was somehow or other to come to terms with it. Another
consideration leads to the same result. We have already

mentioned in what has gone before the fact that, to judge
by form, the sequence of the single units in Deuteronomy
the making of a covenant,
parenesis, commandments,
blessing and cursing points
back to a great liturgical
celebration, and a comparison between the formal charac-
1 Ex. 29.45; Num. 16.3.
40
9
'Name Theology and 'Kabod* Theology
teristicsof the Jehovistic Sinai pericope, on the one hand,
and Deut. 27.12 S on the other, shows us that that cultic
celebration, the Gattung of which can be fairly exactly re-
constructed, was the great Covenant Festival of the Jahweh
amphictyony at Shechem. We thus arrive at the first firm
conclusion which we can make in regard to the provenance
of the Deuteronomic traditions. Deuteronomy stands in
the tradition of the old Jahweh amphictyony of Shechem.
Or rather, it
proposes to re-introduce this old cultic tradi-
tion in its own advanced period and to set it forth as the
form obligatory upon Israel for its life before Jahweh.
The same cannot be maintained for the Priestly Docu-
ment. In the form in which that work now lies before us,
it is, of course, of late date, and therefore a
very compre-
hensive production, in which traditional elements of many
kinds, some, too, of very varied origin, are fused together.
Thus, for instance, P., too, has given the Ark no unimpor-
tant function in its cultic
arrangements. But the view taken
of the Ark has really been changed considerably in relation
to earlier conceptions because of the dominant Kabod-Moed
theology. The mercy seat of the Ark is now the most holy
place, in which the mysterious meeting of Jahweh with
Moses takes place, and out of which Jahweh speaks to
Moses when he has appeared Kabod. 1 A further
in the
indication that the theological point of view which P.
wished to promote and with it alone are we concerned here
clearly derives from a different stream of tradition, lies
in the fact that, from the point of view of form-criticism,
the construction of the Sinai pericope has no recognisable
relations with the Covenant Festival at Shechem. The
question of the provenance of P. resolves itself, in our

opinion, fundamentally into the question of the provenance
of this Kabod-Moed theology which is dominant in it. One
1 Ex.
25.22; Num. 7.89. How
different the conception of the revela-
tion of Jahweh's will to Israel in Deut.: Deut. was received by Moses
on the mountain.
41
Studies In Deuteronomy
immediately thinks of Ezekiel, for we again

meet with the
Kabod from heaven
conception of the coming down of the
2
in him ; there is also mention of the enveloping cloud.
1
The prophet goes beyond P.'s presentation and is bold

TI35 more
enough to describe the appearance of the Hin^
closely : he sees it as a light phenomenon with almost human
contours. It is remarkable how this 'appearance' theology
issues at the very end into a conception of 'dwelling' the :
comes to the new eschatological Jerusalem 'to dwell

'glory'
there for ever' 3 ; then thename of the city will be HfttZ? nln*.*
of the traditions contained
Perhaps only an exact analysis
in the individual elements of the Priestly Document will
the as to the ultimate origin of the 'Kabod'
question
clarify
and 'appearance' theology, which was quite obviously re-
the high-church priestly circles
presented and evolved by
in Jerusalem. Solomon's temple was built as a so-called
also understood as such by
'dwelling temple' and was
Israel.
5
That is not at all surprising when we consider that
it was intended to conceal in its Holy of Holies the Ark
with
old sources the
which, as the unanimously attest, presence
of Jahweh was so closely bound up. The old accounts
6
about the Tent are scanty and far from easy to understand.
All that is clear is that they do not fit in with this 'dwelling'
outside the camp, while the
conception. The Tent stands
Ark was always within the camp. It is not to be assumed
that the the Tent. One's general impression is
Ark stood in
that this Tent only served as an oracular shrine for the
decisions. From time to time the
reception of the divine
cloud descends upon the Tent, in which the then old narrator
imagines Jahweh to be present.
The distinctively alien
character of the few passages about the Tent of Meeting
1 2 Ezek.
Ezek. 1.25 ff; 8.4, 9.3. 1.4; 10.4.
* 4 Esek.
Ezek. 43.4, 7. 48.35.
5
K. Mohlenbrink: Der Tempel Salomos, p. 136. i Kings 8.12;
2 Kings 19.15.
6
Ex. 33.7 8; Num. 11.24 ff; Deut. 31.14 f (E).
4*
9
'Name Theology and 'Kabod* Theology
within the other old Hexateuch traditions prompts the
question whether an addition from some quite different
sphere of tradition is not present here. Is it not possible
that the Tent, which was obviously
foreign to the Shechem
amphictyony, belonged originally to the South, perhaps as
the sanctuary of the old amphictyony of the six tribes in
or near Hebron?1 Hempel has postulated the presence of
Hebron traditions in P. on other grounds. 2 At that rate it
would therefore be an old tradition observed in South
Israel which appears resuscitated in Ezekiel and P. The
reason
why research into these matters is so difficult is that
we know so little about the old
specifically southern
Israelite institutions. The traditions about them were first
of all completely overlaid by the much more puissant
traditions of the Shechem amphictyony, and then, later, the
written tradition was once more subjected to criticism and
interpreted by the school of Deuteronomy. What a thorough
Deuteronomic re-editing there has been, for instance, of
the accounts of the building, furnishings and consecration
of Solomon's temple, and what a different picture would
conceivably rise before us, were we to succeed in re-
moving the weight of this all-powerful later tradition! Is
itnot significant that we hear a clear rejection of the Temple
in favour of the Tent from the mouth of the prophet
Nathan, that is, once more, a south Israelite ? 3 This protest
cannot have been made on the basis of the actual practice
of the amphictyony, since the Ark had been resting, as we
know, in a temple for generations. We find in the Psalms,
on a relatively broad basis, a well-nigh mystical spiritual-
isation of the place of refuge concept:
1
Similarly Lohr has maintained that the empty Tent belongs to 'South
Israel* as sanctuary, theArk to North Israel. OX.Z., 1926, pp. 5 f ; cp.
further R. Kittel, Religion des Volkes Israel^ (2nd ed.), p. 45. the On
amphictyony of the six tribes see M. Noth: Das System der
Stdmme Israels, pp. 75 flf.
2
J. Hempel: Die althebrctische Iîteratur^ pp. 152 f.
8 2 Sam. 7.6.
43
'He hides me in his pavilion in the day of trouble;

Let me hide in the covert of thy wings/
And then, in what is obviously canonical language, comes
mention of the Tent :
'He me in the shield of his tent;

shields
Let me
be a guest in thy tent for evermore!' 1
What is the source of the mention of the Tent ? Is reference
intended to the Tent in which the Ark was housed in the
time of David until the building of the Temple ? 2 It is hard
to believe that this short-term temporary provision could
have given rise to such important cultic terminology. Is it
not more likely that an essentially more firmly established
tradition stands behind it, the one with which the symbolic
name of Oholibah for Jerusalem is still linked? 3 But in
contrast to our previous researches into Deuteronomy, in
this investigation into the traditional backgrounds of the
Priestly Document we do not yet move on solid enough

ground.
1
Ps. 27.5 ; 61.4: the Psalms are, as the addition in Ps. 61,7 f shows,
pre-exilic and therefore pre-P.
2
2 Sam. 6.17; i Kings 2.28, 30.
3
Ezek. 23.4.
44
CHAPTER FOUR
DEUTERONOMY AND THE HOLY WAR
WE were able in what has gone before to maintain with
confidence that, in respect of its broad legal basis, its whole
form and, last, its conception of the dwelling of Jahweh in
Israel, Deuteronomy renews the cultic tradition of the old
Shechem amphictyony. But an important question now
arises. These elements restored by Deuteronomy, of which
we have so far spoken, are far from comprehending the
whole character of the amphictyony and its institutions.
The amphictyony was not, in the last analysis, a religious
union assembling simply for the communal performance of
sacrifice and for hearing the rules which God gave it for
its life. Rather was it a band of tribes which, besides en-
gaging in cultic activities in the narrower sense, also safe-

guarded and defended its whole political existence, sword
in hand. Now, of course, this second side of its activity
was not secular, but cultic just like the other, and subject
to definite laws and ideas. We refer to the institution to
which we give the name, the Holy War. Perhaps it was in
the Holy War even more than the Covenant Festival at
Shechem that ancient Israel really first entered into her
grand form.
We need not here enter into detail on points of cultural
and religious development. Nor need we be concerned with
the difficulty that all manner of old and extremely primitive
tabu and mana conceptions lie behind the stories of the Holy
War, which, as we have them now, have undoubtedly been
spiritualised in the telling. This much, however, should be
said. In his well-known monograph, Schwally puts the
religious level of ancient Israel much too low.

1
Gideon's
Israelites were no Fiji islanders ; their sacral usages in war,
with their background of primitive tabus, point, in turn,
1
Fr. Schwally, Semitische T&iegsaltertiimer. i. Der beilige Krzeg im alten
Israel. Leipzig, 1901.
45
further back to a much older stage of religious cultural

development. However, since our only concern with this
subject is in so far as the question of a survival of such
sacral conceptions arises, we may apply ourselves without
more ado to the references, even if they in their turn already
represent a higher or more spiritual perception.
The proper period of the Holy War was the period of the
old Israelite Amphictyony, that is, the period of the Judges.
c
Caspari was right in reading into the cry, jahweh is a man

of war/ 1 the moment of astonishment called forth by a
discovery, a new experience of Jahweh which Israel had
been allowed to make; for the wilderness does not know
the Holy War in its proper form. The end of this institution
was irrevocably sealed by the formation of the state. From
then onwards the wars were no longer waged under a
charismatic leader but, in Judah, under an hereditary king,
and they were fought by him at the head of an army which
became more and more mercenary in character, a new
development in Israel. That meant, naturally, the under-
mining of the old organisation. The old wars had been
waged by the militias of the tribes raised from levies of the
free citizens possessed of property. None the less, we see
the concept of the Holy War thoroughly alive in the
still
time of David. But after that the old sacral form of warfare
apparently broke down under the impact of rational and
tactical, that is, secular, considerations. This does not
mean, of course, that odd elements of this old institution
did not persist for long enough. But as a totality in its
great obligatory sacral form it was obsolete. To deal with
c
the inexorable utopian' demands of the prophets who,
regardless of all the changes that had taken place, declared
that old patriarchal form of defence binding for their own
time too, would require a chapter for itself.
Not every recourse to arms in the older time was a Holy
War. It is obvious that a very clear distinction was drawn
i Ex. 15.3.
46
Deuteronomy and the Holy War
between a "n ^y^ which was a secular undertaking, and
y
such a one as took place under cultic auspices. 1 In the

Holy War, the first action, it would seem, was regularly
consultation of the deity, whereby Israel or the tribe con-
cerned made certain of Jahweh's readiness to help and save2 ;
then the trumpets were blown and the reassuring cry which
anticipated victory was raised, 'Jahweh hath delivered the
enemy into our hands'. The men themselves submitted to
3
certain restrictions, they were 'consecrated',4 and it was
specially essential to put away anything that might offend

taking part in a Holy War were im-
5
Jahweh. For those
mediately in the sphere of the divine activity Jahweh goes :
before the host; he dwells with them in the camp. 6 The

leader in such a war acted under the compulsion of a definite
charisma, which invested him with full powers for the
office, but the 'willing offering of himself' by the individual
warrior was also praised as a special gift from Jahweh. 7 If
the initiative lay wholly with Jahweh, he also determined
what actually happened in the action. That is the reason
why the numbers engaged in the Holy War are never a
decisive factor. 8 The stories intentionally exaggerate the
numerical disparity in order to give the honour of the victory
to Jahweh alone. In the Gideon story that consideration
is so much in the forefront that it concedes no participa-
tion to the fighters themselves; they stay directly before the

enemy's camp making the strangest gestures to accompany
in. The climax of the Holy War
the divine action which sets
is that terror sent by God the regular term is HlQin^ QDH
comes upon the enemy, a numinous panic in which they
1
i Sam. 21.6. David's sending back of the Ark in 2 Sam. 15.24 ff
belongs here too. Holy Wars proper are called 'Jahweh's wars*, i Sam.
18.17; 25.28.
2
i Sam. 28.6; 30.7; 2 Sam. 5.19, 23.
3
Judg. 3.27; 6.3; i Sam. 13.3; Judg. 7.15.
4 i Sam.
21.6; 2 Sam. n.ii; Isa. 13.3; Jer. 6.4.
5 6
Deut. 23.10-15. (E.V., 9-14.) Deut. 23.14; Judg. 4.14.
7 8 Sam. 13.15 ff; 14.6, 17.
Judg. 5.2, 9. Judg. 7.2 ff; i
47
act blindly and accomplish their own destruction. 1 Thus,

at the culminating point of the engagement the action is
wrested from the leader's hands without his knowing it,

and a miracle from Jahweh drops as it were into empty
has been scrupulously
space from which all human activity
removed. Unquestionably in the Gideon stories there is
already a certain theologising tendency,

but they do em-
bolder relief what faith
phasise and throw into only slightly
as inalienable from the conception of
regarded absolutely
the Holy War, namely, that the sole agent in it was Jahweh;
the fighters' chief duty was to submit confidently to Jah-
weh's sway and not to be afraid in face of the enemy's
superior numbers in a word,
to have faith. proper A
of in the individual which would
subjective attitude spirit
enable him to play his part in the undertaking was appar-
ently more important than arms or military skill. The
conjecture that the exclusion
of those who were afraid took
its origin in demonistic ideas will prove that the measure
was a means of self-protection for the league-at-arms. But
we must assume that this demand was at a very early date
re-interpreted by the Jahweh faith in the light of its specific
assumptions; and amongst the most noticeable character-
istics of that faith is the absence of a demonology. The
result was that the demand was given a positive turn: it

5 2
became a Be not afraid, a 'Hold your peace and in all ,
probability the biblical demand

for faith has its proper
origin here in the Holy War of ancient Israel.
The taken in such a war was O'DD, "under the ban*,

spoil
and in consequence
that is, the exclusive property of Jahweh,
completely outwith human disposal. As to the range of

what fell under the ban, the accounts vary. On occasion
the enemy's men, women and children, their cattle and all
their valuables are mentioned, on occasion the women or
3
1 Sam. 7.10;
Josh. 10.10; Judg. 4.15; i 5.11, etc.
2
Num. 14.9; Judg. 7.3; Ex. 14.14.
3
Josh. 6.17 ff; i Sam. 15.3.
48
the cattle are excepted. It is doubtful whether the usage as
a whole can be brought within the category of the vow; if
itcan, then that would certainly be a more mature concep-
tion1 ; it presupposes also that men are free to choose
whether they wifl perform the ban or not. The conception
in i Sam. 15.3, where the banning originates in a demand
from Jahweh and where it appears as the real purpose of
the war, is certainly more ancient. The most important
thing for us is that the obligation to put under the ban was
conceived by the Jahweh faith as an act of acknowledgement
of Jahweh and his help. How Saul was thereby brought
into a status confessionis and then resiled, is shown in the
story in i Sam. 1 5 .
We have given this brief synopsis of the basic conceptions

of the Holy War almost without references to it from
Deuteronomy. The question is all the more
urgent now; is
not and concept with which the
this a sacral institution
traditions contained in Deuteronomy stand in essential
relationship? Deuteronomy is the one corpus in the Old

Testament containing numerous laws about war, regula-
tions about the investment of cities, prisoners of war, etc.,
at the back of which stand traditions which are without
doubt old. But in our opinion it is of as great import that
the whole parenetic diction is sustained in the strongest
possible way by an ideology inspired by war. Let it not be
said that these are ordinary Israelite articles of faith and
that, therefore, it is no wonder if we come across them also
in Deuteronomy so much later in time. A glance at the
Priestly Code shows us a very different world, pointing
back for the origin of its traditions and institutions to quite
other spheres of the life of ancient Israel. We cannot help
but notice the difference from the Holiness Code, which
we have, after all, approximated so closely to Deuteronomy
in another respect. The cultic peasant life of that Code has
absolutely no trace of the things of war in it. And yet how
1 Stade: BtbL Tbeologie des A.T., p. 155; Num. 21.2.
D 49
dominating it is in Deuteronomy! It can be comprised

under three heads in Deuteronomy:
(a) The Deuteronomic laws concerning war:

laws concerning war, 20.1-9;
investment of cities, 20.10-18, 19-20;
female prisoners of war, 21.10-14;
the law concerning the camp, 23.10-14;
exemption for the newly-married, 24.5 ;
the law concerning Amalek, 25.17-19.
There complete agreement to-day that these laws are

is
not the composition of the author of Deuteronomy, and

that fairly old, indeed in part very old, material is
present
in them. Individually they certainly vary in
age. The law
concerning the camp will be older than that forbidding the
cutting down of fruit trees. But all of them presuppose
the settlement in Canaan they reckon with cities, siege-
craft, alien labourers and so on. But for our purpose here
the most important thing to notice about them is that, like
the cultic regulations in Deuteronomy, leave us
they
with two On
the one hand, they
different impressions.
contain what is very ancient; indeed, we can still trace in
them the outlines of ideas that reach back into the
pre-
jahwistic period. On the other hand, this has all been
re-interpreted: it is
permeated with the conceptions char-
acteristicof Deuteronomy and so brought
up to date. We
cannot enter into detail here to show how this
re-interpre-
tation has led, to some extent, to a
humanising and, to some
extent, to a rational demateriaBsing of the old ordinances.
But even what touches the institution itself
in regard to
there is much
changed. For example, in the old Holy Wars
of the amphictyonic period it was
obviously the armies of
the tribes that carried matters
through, as the levy of the
whole amphictyony did not go into action on
every par-
ticular occasion, but often
enough only individual tribes.
In Deuteronomy there is no longer
any trace of this; there
Israel isthought of as a unity, taking the field, if at all, as a
body. This reflects military conditions which came into
being, at the earliest, with the formation of the kingdom,

but probably, as we shall see further on, considerably later.
On the other hand, it is noticeable that none of these laws
give the king the role of authority in the conduct of war
which he had in fact. This gives the impression that, in all
these ordinances which Deuteronomy re-introduced, there
is at work a strong tendency towards the re-institution of
what obtained in the past. In detail the question of the age

of the material taken up has to be answered differently from
case to case. But only the law concerning Amalek (25.17-19)
admits of the suspicion of being pure doctrine.
() The Deuteronomic speeches concerning war: the law

concerning war in 20.1-9 * s composite. It begins with an
address in the singular in v. i when Israel goes into battle,
:
it is not to be afraid if the enemy is

numerically stronger or
better equipped. At v. z commences a passage with the
plural form of address immediately before the battle, the
:
priest is to address the host thus :
'Hear, Israel, ye approach now unto battle with your

enemies. Let not your hearts faint, fear not, do not tremble
and be not terrified because of them, for Jahweh your God
is he that goeth with you, to fight for you
against your
enemies, to save you/
Then follows the speech of the 'officers',1 exempting

at v. 5
such as have built a house or planted a vineyard, or those

who have just married. Those, too, that are fearful are to
leave the host. Then the officers are to go to the head of the
troops.
The redundancies are obvious. The order not to be
1
On the officers (D*HC?ttf) as the officials charged with the recruit-
ment of the levy, see most recently E. Junge: Der Wtederaufbau des
Heenvesens des Ejsiches Juda mter Josia, 1937, pp. 48 ff.
51
afraid given three times first by the Deuteronomic 'law-

is :
giver' (v. i), second by

the priest (v. 3), and thirdly by the
officers (v. 8). The easiest to remove as secondary is the
section giving the priest's address, w. 2-4. But v. 8, too,
the officers' admonition not to be afraid, looks very like an
addition, since it is introduced anew as a speech of the

officers to the warriors. There are therefore three strands.
The oldest is the officers' address in w. 5-7; this speech,
which concerned with objective ritual facts, has
is strictly
been expanded in v. 8 by a question concerning the sub-
jective condition of
the warriors. The question about fear
is really already akin here to a question about the warriors'
faith. Finally, the priest's address is added,
completing the
impregnation of the whole with the ideology of the Holy
War. Here then we can very easily mark the stages in the
growth of a religious revival, which was also, in this case,
a spiritualisation.
Our concern is with the last strand, in which, of course,
Deuteronomy's aim to conceive war as a Holy War in the
sense of the old institution is quite clearly expressed. The
procedure in
is
principle exactly the same as we recognised
it to be in the case of the cultic laws' of Deuteronomy: old
ordinances were taken up by Deuteronomy, and remoulded

in parenetic form and brought up to date in the light of its
peculiar theology. We
found further that, in respect of
Gattung., this parenetic form
goes back to a definite homi-
letic method of instruction used by the priests. Can we
find something of the same sort being done in the case of
the speeches about war, too ? The actual literary form in
which we find the law does not in itself favour any such
assumption. But the conjecture that the priest's address in
this passage is not a pure invention of Deuteronomy's
has some antecedent justification. For we have at last
learned to differentiate between a purely literary judge-
ment and one arrived at on the basis of form-criticism,
for even decidedly late texts representing theoretical theo-
5*
logical standpoints can be made to disclose cultic usages

which actually did obtain. 1
Let us look at the great parenetic introduction to Deuter-
onomy, chapters i-n. It can be taken as certain that this

section not to be claimed as a homogeneous structure
is
either from the form-critical or the literary point of view,

but it represents a compilation of several liturgical "formu-
laries' for the festival of the reading of the law. This is
particularly clear, for example, in chapter 7.1-15: i-u w.

are parenesis, w.
12-15 promises of blessing; between the
two sections we are to imagine the reading of the law. The
case the same in chapter 11.1-21 the parenesis in w. 1-12
is :
w. 13-21 are blessing and cursing.

keeps closer to history;
Chapter 10.12-22 (with some verses in the plural inserted)
and 8.1-20 also appear to have been parenetic sections.
Similarly chapter 11.22-28: w. 22-25 are parenesis, w.

26-28 blessing and cursing. Now, no doubt, the beginnings
and the ends of the sections are frequently blurred, for in
its present form the whole has become literature and divorced
from its Sify im Leben, the actual usages of the cult. But in
spite of that this analysis is undoubtedly correct. 2
There however, some passages in the great block
are,
made up of chapters 6-n which are extremely difficult to
fit in with the sketch just given. For example, 7.16-26:
'Thou shalt exterminate all the peoples which Jahweh thy

God delivers up to thee. Thou shalt not spare them and
shalt not serve their gods, but that would be a snare to thee.
Shouldest thou say to thyself: these peoples are greater in
number than I, how can I drive them out? be not afraid
of them, but remember what Jahweh thy God did to
Pharaoh and all Egypt, the great proofs which thou sawest
with thine eyes, the strong hand and the outstretched arm
1
Consider Deut. 31.10-13, and the custom of reading the law at
the Feast of Tabernacles; A. Alt, op. cit. y pp. 53 f.
2 A.
Klosterrnann : Der Pentateuch, N.F., p. 273. v. Had, Das
S.
formgescbicbtUcbe "Problem des Hexateucb, pp. 27
53
with which Jahweh thy God led thee out. So will Jahweh
thy God deal with all the peoples of whom thou art afraid.
Moreover Jahweh thy God will send disheartening1 against
them, until they that are left and hide themselves from thee
are perished. Be not in dread of them, for Jahweh thy God
in thy midst, a mighty and terrible God. And Jahweh thy
is
God will drive out these peoples before thee bit by bit;
thou canst not destroy them quickly, else the wild beasts
would become too many. Jahweh thy God will deliver
them to thee. He will cause a great panic (H/MTUD Oft^T),
until they are destroyed, and he will put their kings into
thy hand and thou shalt obliterate their name under heaven.
None will be able to hold their own before thee, until thou
hast destroyed them. The images of their gods
shall ye burn
with fire, thou shalt not desire the silver and gold that is
upon them, and shalt not take it unto thee, that it may not
become a snare to thee, for it is an abomination for Jahweh
thy God. And an abomination shalt thou not bring into
thy house, lest thou fall forthwith under the ban (Q^D
0*7'7]y
Thou shalt banish it from thee with abhorrence and
1
loathing, for it is fallen under the ban (^H G^fT ?)/

The passage is a unit in itself. It was preceded by the
proclamation of blessing in w. 12-15, the conclusion, that
is, of the parenetic unit mentioned above. fresh warning A
to obey the divine commandments begins
at 8.1. But the
most marked difference in the warning with which we have
to do here lies in the fact that there is absolutely no mention
of commandments, the law which I command thee this day',
obedience, etc. Not the slightest account is taken of
Jahweh's will as revealed in law. On
the contrary, what is
proclaimed exclusively here is the fundamental principles
of the Holy War: thou shalt not be afraid even in face of
superior numbers Jahweh himself fighteth he is in the
midst of thee in battle he will bring the divine panic upon
1
L. Kohler: Z.A.W., 1936, p. 191.
54
the enemy from what is under the ban. Do not
abstain
these completely delineate the whole range of the concep-
tions connected with the Holy War? And further: is it not
conceivable that this is the kind of language which would
actually have been used in a period whose chief aim it was
to re-introduce sacral regulations of periods long past?
One is all the more inclined to answer this question in the
affirmative when it is seen that this passage of ours is not
the only one of its kind in Deuteronomy, but that there are
several similar 'formularies' as speeches concerning war.
"Hear, Israel, thou art this day to pass over the Jordan,
to go in and overthrow peoples that are greater and stronger
than thyself, great cities that are fortified up to heaven, a
great and people, the Anakim, whom thou knowest and

tall
of whom thou hast heard said, Who can stand before the
Anakim? But thou wilt this day know that it is
Jahweh
thy God who goeth before thee as a consuming fire. He
will destroy them, he will cast them down before thee, that
thou mayest drive them out and quickly destroy them, as
Jahweh hath promised thee. Think not to thyself, when
Jahweh thy God dispossessed them before thee, for my
desert hath Jahweh brought me in, to take this land in
possession, whereas Jahweh driveth out these peoples be-

cause of their wickedness. Not for thy desert or thy pure
heart dost thou come in, to take their land in possession,
but because of their wickedness Jahweh thy God driveth
out these people before thee, to fulfil the word that Jahweh
sware to thy fathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Know
therefore, that Jahweh thy God giveth thee this fair land
in possession not for thy desert, for thou art a stiff-necked
people" Deut. 9.1-6.

Here, too, the law given by Moses and the question of
obedience lies completely outwith the range of the speech. It,
too, seems to us to have its place within the framework of
the ideology of the Holy War which Deuteronomy brought
to life again. Even if it does not comprehend the concep-
55
tions of theHoly War so completely as the previous passage,

itdoes revolve emphatically round what is most important
it is
Jahweh who does the fighting and gains the victory,
so that any self-glorification and any boasting about their
own achievement would be a great sin. We must not fail
to appreciate here the speaker's position in a more advanced
stage in history he is reckoning with the possibility that his

:
audience may have a very different conception of warlike

events they may regard them from a very human stand-
point; his attitude is accordingly apologetic; and he does
not hesitate to slip over into what is rationalising argu-
mentation ('not for thy desert, but because of their wicked-
3
ness ).
'Jahweh thy God, he will go over before thee; he will

destroy these peoples before thee, that thou overcomest
them. (Joshua will go over before thee, as Jahweh hath
commanded) and Jahweh will deal with them as he dealt
with Sihon and Og, the kings of the Amorites, and their
land, whom he destroyed. And when Jahweh giveth them
over to you, ye shall deal with them exactly according to
the commandment which I have given you. Be ye
strong
and of good courage, fear them not and be not in dread of
them, for Jahweh thy God goeth with thee; he will not fail
thee nor forsake thee/ And Moses called to Joshua and
c
spake to him before the whole of Israel: Be strong and of

good courage, for thou shalt bring the people into the land
which Jahweh sware to their fathers to give them, and thou
wilt allot it to them as an inheritance. But Jahweh, he
goeth
before thee; he will not fail thee nor forsake thee. Fear not
and be not dismayed!' Deut. 31.3-6, 7-8.
These are clearly two formularies, which are well nigh
parallel in content and phraseology. Such passages inevi-
tably raise the form-critical question of their derivation. In
our opinion, we have here and in the previously quoted
texts Deuteronomic war speeches in a fair
degree of ori-
ginality, adapted with only very slight revision to the
56
historical situation -which Deuteronomy is supposed to have
before the conquest of the land. The assumption that
priests assisted at military operations presents no difficulties.
In the older period it was probably the regular practice for
a man of God to seek to determine the issue of military
operations by blessing his own people and putting the
enemy under
1
sacral
;
and the subsequent
proscription
spiritualising and theologising of an old usage would cor-
respond perfectly with the author of Deuteronomy's
2
practice.
(f) Deuteronomy's atmosphere of war is, however, far

from coming to expression only in the so-called laws con-
cerning war and the speeches concerning war, but it stands
on a much broader basis it permeates the whole corpus as
:
an unmistakable adjunct and gives it a very specific impress.

There are examples on every hand in Deuteronomy :
'
6.18: ... ye shall keep the commandments of Jahweh
. . . that thou mayest come into the fair land and take . . .
it in possession, driving out all thine enemies before thee,

3
as Jahweh hath promised thee.
7. i f 'When Jahweh thy God bringeth thee into the land,
:
to which thou goest now, to possess it, and casteth out
many peoples before thee and Jahweh thy God putteth

. . .
Ex. 17.11: Judg. 5.12; Num. 22 F.

1
2
would not be difficult to extract some material on the subject of
It
such war speeches, or at least elements which, as far as language goes,
derive from such speeches, from the Deuteronomistic histories as well:
'Every place whereon the sole of your feet shall tread, give I unto you
... no one is to be able to stand before thee thy whole life long. As I
' *
was with Moses, so will I be with thee. . Josh. 1.3, 5. Jahweh
. .
your God will himself expel them before you and drive them out before
you, and ye shall take possession of their land, as Jahweh your God
hath promised you ... a single man of you chases a thousand before
you; for Jahweh your God himself fighteth for you, as he hath pro-
mised you*. Josh. 23.5, 10. We find the direct continuation of this
tradition in the war speeches of the Chronicler's work: 2 Chi on. 1 5.1 flf;
16.71!; 2o.i5fT; 3 2.7 If. Cp. von Rad, 'Die levitische Predigt in den
Bucbern der Chronik\ festschrift Otto Proeksch, 1934, pp. 113 ff.
57
them into thy hand, thou shalt utterly put them under the
ban <tnn5 cnnn).'
lf ye fulfil this whole law ... ,
c
11.23 S
(E.V., 22 fi):
all these peoples before you, and ye
Jahweh will drive out
will overcome peoples that are greater
and stronger than
y OU No one will be able to stand against you; fear and

dread of you will Jahweh your God lay upon all the land
that ye tread upon/
12.29: 'When Jahweh thy God cutteth off the peoples to

whom thou wilt go, to overcome them, and thou over-
comest them, to settle in their land.
19.1:
c
When Jahweh thy God cutteth off the peoples,
whose 'land Jahweh thy God will give thee, and thou
overcomest.
20.16 f : 'But in the cities of these people, which Jahweh
shall give thee for an inheritance, thou shall
not
thy God
leave alive anything that hath breath, but
thou shalt utterly
put them under the ban (Dff^ffi) tnijiJ).'

as
We are not to take these and similar statutes meaning-
less adjuncts, but must understand
them as a leading
and tolerably characteristic element in Deuteronomy. Be-
a perfectly definite ideology
hind phraseology stands
this
and behind the ideology stand, as its representatives and
definite groups in the nation. Glanc-
champions, perfectly
at the Priestly Document or the
ing again for comparison
Holiness Code, we see that we have obviously to
look for
these different groups from those in which
amongst quite
both these works emanated. A much more marked political
Oae evidence of it
atmosphere permeates Deuteronomy.
is the large part which the consideration
of the other peoples
plays in the thought

of Deuteronomy. The being and duty
of Israel are brought into relation with the
constantly
existence of other peoples, and with the judgement passed
customs and sins. Men speak to us
1
upon them, and their
i
e.g., 8.20; 12.2; 15.6; 18.9, 14; 23.20; 25.19; 26.19; 28.10; 29.2-4-
58
from the pages of Deuteronomy who have a very pressing
concern with over against foreign nations ;
Israel's existence
it is for that reason that the
question too of delimitation
outward plays so great a role, 1 that the possibility of an
extension of the territory occupied by Israel is envisaged, 2
etc. Deuteronomy is making a bold bid for the unification
of all departments of life in IsraeL In a previous work I have
tried to show how this was effected by means of stressing
the idea of a national community, an idea which comes to
expression throughout and which has been subsequently
imposed even upon the very much older legal material.
3
1
23.1 ff; 7.1 ff.
2
12.20; 19.8.
3
v. Rad: Das Gotfesvolk im Deuferonomum, Stuttgart, 1929. The
present work may however be regarded as, in substantial points, a

correction of that earlier production.
59
CHAPTER FIVE
THE PROVENANCE OF
DEUTERONOMY
So far, the results of our whole examination are by no
means unambiguous. We saw in Deuteronomy a great deal
of old cultic material worked over and presented homilet-
ically. Who were the people who had access to such a wide
range of this matter and who possessed, further, the full right
to make so incisive and striking an interpretation of these cul-
They can only have been priests. On the other
tic traditions ?
hand, we met a decidedly martial spirit in Deuteronomy.

Its whole parenetic content was, so to speak, saturated with
the ideas associated with the Holy War; behind the Deuter-
onomic parenesis we can descry an audience with weapons
in its hands as it listens to the divine injunctions. In respect
spirit, we might look for the
of this national and warlike
originators of Deuteronomy amongst the militia. This
Janus-like quality we take to be the real
problem of Deuter-
onomy and any
: answer to the question of its provenance
must prove true for this peculiar double form.
As to the very decided martial spirit in Deuteronomy,
our own conclusions agree significantly with the results
arrived at in E. Junge's work on the Wiederaufbau des
Heerwesens des 'Ketches Juda unter ]osia^ Junge sees in the
events of the year 701 the decisive break in the evolution
of the army of Judah. The disciplined mercenary troops
had been surrendered to the Assyrian king. During the
period when the Assyrian power was in decline, the state
had absolutely no resources from which to re-form troops
of the kind, including chariots and horses. 2 'There was
probably then only one single other way for the kingdom
of Judah to overcome the lack of financial resources and
build up a new military force, namely, to raise no troops
1
Bettrqge %ur Wissenschaft vom ^4.T. und JV,T. 3 Stuttgart,
2
Junge, op. tit., pp. 26, 97.
60
The Provenance of Deuteronomy
and make no purchases from abroad, but to build up from

what the country itself offered. That means, the population
capable of bearing arms had to be called up for military
service. Such service could be demanded of every subject
as a civil liability, and allowed of the formation of an army
that was adequate in strength and yet not costly. In other
words, the old militia which had passed into oblivion had
to be recalled to life.' 1 Those especially who have no doubt
about the close connection of Deuteronomy with the time
of Josiah must give special consideration to this thesis,
demonstrated as it clearly is by much in the sources, especi-
ally those of the time of Josiah. We took a different line of
approach above and enquired about the representatives of
Deuteronomy's martial ideology. But the institution of the
Holy War, which we saw so determinedly re-introduced by
Deuteronomy, is something directly connected with the old
militia, and only fell victim to dissolution and secularisation
with the emergence of the mercenary army in the period of
the kings. 2 So, we suggest, the circle is to some extent now
closed we have to look within Judah's revived militia for
:
the representatives of the religious ideas expressed in Deuter-

onomy. It is certainly very likely that when the old tribes
and amphictyonies became active, religious forces, too,
moved into the centre which had been either eliminated for
pushed to the circumference
centuries, or at least drastically
under the ascendancy of the capital. Of course, while
maintaining this, we wish to leave the question of cause and
effect open: was it the conservative circles of the country
nobility, whose religious outlook was still largely patri-

archal, who saw hour had struck after 701 and
that their
envisaged regeneration from within as the only possible way

of salvation, or did this patriarchal element only attain to
new influence in the wake of the military teform ? Obviously
these circles were the representatives of a determination to
reconstruct over against the desultory political experiments
1 2
Junge, of, rif., p. 29. See above p. 60.
61
of the capital. They wereorthodox according to the

still
standards of the patriarchal calling-out of the Jahweh

amphictyony, or, rather, they wished so to be. That
Deuteronomy is the product of a revival movement is
beyond question. And so it is easily established that it was
not in actual fact the genuinely old, the restoration of which
was effected in Deuteronomy. On the one hand, really
important elements of the old institution (e.g., the charis-
matic leadership) were not resurrected, while on the other,
many later features (e.g., the kingship and prophecy) have
asserted themselves in Deuteronomy.
This determination of Deuteronomy's to reconstruct
moved wholly within the ambit of the traditions of the old
Jahweh amphictyony. The amphictyony was the original
of the new order for Israel, and its goal. That was not a
matter of course. Theoretically it would have been perfectly
conceivable for a revival movement to envisage the hey-day
of national prosperity under David as its standard. But it
is quite impossible to construe Deuteronomy along these
lines. The extremely insignificant position that the king
occupies, nay more, the complete absence of the tradition
of the Davidic covenant with all its Messianic consequences,
and, finally, Deuteronomy's noticeable silence on important
political functions of the king, can only be taken to mean
that Deuteronomy originated in circles where sacral con-
ceptions of the "anointed of Jahweh' had perhaps never

really gained a footing. But above all, there is positive proof
of Deuteronomy's provenance from the amphictyonic
traditions inits form and content. As far as concerns
content, Deuteronomy's general adherence to the amphic-
tyonic traditions is shown chiefly in the fact that when, in
the later regal period, Israel's life had become drastically
broken down and disintegrated, the book makes a com-
prehensive attempt to gather her into new unity by desig-
nating her as the people of God. But this very expression
nin* DS? is
given in the older period as a designation for the
62
amphictyonic and that in connection with the

militia,
militia in the field: Sam. I.I2. 1
Judg. 5.11; 20.2; 2
That brings us now to one final consideration. The
accounts of what took place at the removal of Athaliah and
the raising of Joash to the throne contain one or two
particulars which are of value now for helping us to answer
the question about the provenance of
Deuteronomy. One
at least of the forces which took a hand in affairs then was
manifestly the f^Xn D$7. We may take it as certain that the

term means the free, property-owning, full citizens of
Judah,
that is, the section of the
people which we have already
mentioned above as the proper people liable for
military
service, who in the event of war made their appearance in
the levy of the militia. 2 The accounts furnish a clear
enough
picture of what took place, and they are thoroughly trust-
worthy, even the parallel account which Stade calls later,
2 Kings n.i3-i8a. 3 The initiative lay no doubt with the
high priest Jehoiada, but he alone with the palace guard
cannot have set things in motion without a
previous under-
standing with some influential political group, and that
group was the property-owning citizens of the country
districts. Their presence in the
Temple while the dramatic
events were enacted was certainly no accident. 'The
city
was quiet*, but, 'the f D$7 D ^ tejoiced',
4
that was they
is, it
who through their acclamation set the

young king on the
throne. Then came the making of a solemn covenant be-
tween Jahweh on the one^side and the king and the
1 people
on the other HiiT*? Dl? ? Tfrtf? (2 Kings 11.17), A covenant
in these terms certainly implied
far-reaching policies to be
put into effect, for the conclusion of a covenant between
Jahweh, the king and the people was certainly no everyday
1 M. Noth: Das System der sgvolf Stamme Israels^ pp. 120
2
E. Wiirthwein: Der e
amm ha'arez im A.T., Ifoitrage ûr Wissen-
schaft vom A.v.N.T. IV, p. 17, 1936.
3
Z.A.W. 1885, pp. 280 ff.
4
2 Kings 11.20.
occurrence: clearly, a break was to be made with the past

1
and a new beginning entered upon with Jahweh. Unfor-
to tell us at this very
tunately the sources have very little
that what took place even on
point, but we think it certain
that occasion was a reform in the sense of a harking back to
the ordinances of the old Jahweh amphictyony. That the
2
obligations which the king

and people then took on were
in the main cultic can be inferred from the fact
probably
that a covenant was made at all, for in those times when the
cult was already so drastically disintegrated a covenant with
Jahweh implied an adherence to religious aims. For

the
same reason, we cannot seriously call in question the
destruction of the temple
genuineness of the notice about the
1
Unfortunately the text in 2 Kings 11.17 is not certain,
and its
^
as Kittel (Com*, in loco] thinks, a matter of

originality is suspect. Is it,
two covenants, the one hand between Jahweh, the king and the
on
people, and on the other between the king and the people? But fy\
rather to be regarded as simply ditto-
DSJTJ
pDI l^SH in v. ijb is
graphy. But then the passage is different in Chronicles; Chronicles

gives an account not of a covenant of the king and the people with
Jahweh (HIPP ^Sl), but of one made by Jehoiada between himself
in loco) and others
(1r3) and the king and people. Benzinger (Com..,
but they can hardly be
regarded this account as older and original,
With Chronicles it is a case of a theological correction due to
right.
bias this covenant making was to be set apart from the great canoni-
cal covenants. In comparison, 2 Kings 11.17 is decidedly more ancient.
2
M. Noth has represented the view, in Die Gesetê im Pentateuch,,
Schriften der Kb'nigsberger Gekhrten-Geselkchaft., 17. ]ahr y Geisteswiss.
Ktasse, Heft 2, pp. 22 rr, that the sacral union of the tribes was neither
replaced nor brought to an
end by the formation of the state, but that
even in the period of the monarchy the Temple with the Ark remained
the Amphictyonic central shrine of the tribes till the end. The account
of the making of the covenant in 2 Kings 11.17 appears to justify this
still not certain whether, in the references and
interpretation. But I am
a case of an Amphictyonic
arguments adduced by Noth, it is not
intention breaking out here and there, which was to some extent con-
existent and functioning
sciously archaising, rather than an actually
institution. Applied to Deuteronomy, that would mean that Deuter-
onomy desires by a 'utopian* anachronism to impose the old order
of the Amphictyony upon the state of the later monarchical period.
of Baal. the Judeans of the

It is perfectly credible that
country took
districts a stand against the syncretism pre-
vailing in the capital. What political consequences the
reform had we are not told, but they were seemingly a
drastic curtailment of the king's absolute powers.
Taken all in all, the accounts reveal a serious crisis in the
life of the Judean state, which did not
develop fully because
of the active intervention in politics of the Q 5?. And T^H
when we now go on add that king Joash, too, later
to
turned his attention to the Temple, 1 the whole thing looks,
does it not, like a little prelude to what took place after-
wards under Josiah? Even by this time the political tension
between Jerusalem with its court and officials "on the one
hand, and the peasant full-citizens of the country districts
on the other, was already considerable, and in the two
centuries following it can only have been still further
intensified.
The parallels between the two incidents compel attention
when we call to mind the part played by the peasant pro-
prietors in the time of Josiah. Josiah's father, Amon, fell
victim to a palace revolution, the background of which we
do not know. Here, too, the VD$5 E5? intervened. They
set aside the Jerusalem clique of traitors, that is, they
baulked their political programme (which is not known to
2
us) and raised Josiah to the throne. Now, it is manifestly
impossible to miss the connection between this elevation of
Josiah to the throne by the f p$H QS? and the whole policy,
including the reform, which this king pursued. Oest-
reicher and, after him, Procksch, have shown convincingly,
the latter in detail, that it was a foreign policy of emanci-
pation and national self-determination, and at the same
time one of internal renewal. 3 How definitely national inde-
pendence was the goal at which the TÔ
&? aimed with
1 2
1 Kings 12.4 S. 2 Kings 21.24.
3 Proksch: Kon. Josia, festschrift fur TL Zabn, pp. 19 ft
65
their policycan be gathered indirectly from 2 Kings 23.33

After Josiah's death, in what we may be sure was a last
desperate attempt, after the catastrophe, to keep continuity
with the tradition that had been so abruptly broken off, the
y^KH DS7 raised Jehoahaz, a son of Josiah's, to the throne.
But Pharaoh Necho at once intervened, and replaced this
group's candidate with a man of his own choice, who
pursued, we may certainly infer, a completely different
political policy.
1
The fact that this T??'7 BS7 as always W
especially singled out when the enemy levied indemnities
points in the same direction; their opposition was evidently
taken specially seriously as representing the heart and soul
of the resistance. 2
We thus arrive, from a totally different angle of approach,
at the same result as we gained from the analysis of Deuter-
onomy: the old patriarchal traditions of the strict Jahweh

faith had long remained alive amongst the free peasant
population, and given rise to an opposition to the capital
which expressed itself in strong impulses towards revival
both in the cult and in politics. These impulses are plain
for us to see partly in reforms that were set afoot to modify
the cult and politics bit by bit, as it were, and partly in the
cultic, martial programme of Deuteronomy. We can take
itfor granted that with the revival of the institution of the
militia after 701 a momentous hour struck for these people.
The actual spokesmen of this movement were the country
Levites, whom Deuteronomy presumes to be living here and
there in the country towns. 3 At any rate, the authors of
Deuteronomy are to be sought amongst those Levites. But
thismeans that we have also found a tenable explanation
of Deuteronomy's remarkable Janus-like character, its
combination of what is priestly and cultic with a national
1 Wutthwein: op. tit., pp. 33 ff; Kittel: Geschicbte des Volkes Israel, II,
6th ed., p. 419.
2 2 Kings 23.30; 25.18-21. Wiitthwein: op. cit.> pp. 34 fF, 44 f.
* Deut. 12.12, 18f; 14.27, 29; 16.11, 14; 26.12.
66
and martial spirit. Such tolerably clear indications as we have

of the provenance of Deuteronomy narrow the circle of
5
possible "authors as follows: first, they must have been

men invested with full priestly powers who had access to
a copious sacral literature, and who also possessed this dis-
parate material in a form in which it was powerfully im-
pregnated with, and integrated by means of, a theology.
These cannot have been laymen. But furthermore, in the
second place, they must have been the representatives of a
passionate movement for national and military rehabilitation.
Indeed, we may perhaps go even a little further still in this
question of authorship. Just as old painters and sculptors
sometimes put a self-portrait hidden away in the corner of
a big composition, so we could perhaps see in the priestly
preacher of the Holy War, as he is shown us in Deut. 20,
one of the Levites who arecertainly to be credited with the
working out of Deuteronomy. The Levites had a close
connection with the Holy War, for the Levites and the Ark
belong together, and the Ark was plainly the Palladium of
1
the Holy War. Only we must always bear in mind in this

whole connection that we are dealing with traditions that
have been revived.
The most obvious objection to this view is that the
country Levites would have been the last persons to com-
pose Deuteronomy, for in so doing they would have been
sawing off the branch upon which they sat. But it is being
increasingly recognised that the demand for centralisation
in Deuteronomy rests upon a very narrow basis only, and
is,from the point of view of literary criticism, comparatively
easy to remove as a late and final adaptation of many layers
of material. But, apart from that, it is increasingly a question
whether the country Levites, whom Deuteronomy pre-
sumes everywhere as living in the country towns, were
before this time purely cult-personnel and therefore chiefly
interested in the cult. The whole spiritual atmosphere per-
1 2 Sam. 15.24.
vading the book, the 'protestant* atmosphere., as it has been

designated, was not something of the present and the
immediate past. Behind it, as its representatives, stands a
body of Levites, perhaps turned proletarian, which had
evidently long outgrown the cultic sphere proper and was
busying itself with the scholarly preservation and trans-
mission of the old traditions. 1
This brings us to the end of our investigation: it dis-
closes, of course, only the most immediate and nearest
backgrounds of Deuteronomy. If we wanted to try to
reach further back still, we should probably stumble very
soon upon specifically North Israelite traditions, that is to
2
say, specifically Israelite traditions. The Shechem tradi-
tions contained in chapter 27 are obviously at odds with the
demand for centralisation. (By this token, the separation of
the centralising laws proper from the older traditions,
which are only to be interpreted secondarily in the light of
this demand, hasin general proved itself a very fruitful
principle for the analysis of Deuteronomy.)3 And, further,

the North explains the striking connections apparent be-
tween Deuteronomy and Hosea. Of course, having regard
to the great difference in the subject matter compared, we
can only warn against assuming a direct dependence: but
in the general spiritual atmosphere, in the way both pose
the question, Jahweh or Baal, and in single demands, there
is much akin.
That brings us now to a last point.
1
After this was written, my attention was drawn to the fact that in
his work, Die ]osianische Reform und ihre Vomussetûngen, Copenhagen,
1926, Aage Bentzen had already adduced what are to some extent
very considerable arguments in support of the thesis which derives
Deuteronomy from the circles of the country Levites, and had sketched
a history of the Levitical reform movement. I did not have access to
the book while the present work was in preparation.
2
Particularly A. Welch: The Code of Deuteronomy> passim. Lohr (and
others) are quite wrong, that the 'Jahwism observed in South Israel*
comes to expression in Deuteronomy. S.K.G.G., 1925, p. 203.
3
Especially with A. Welch, op. tit.
68
It may be
objected that, in defining the provenance of
Deutetonomy as we have, we have taken no account of the
possibility that it might have originated in prophetic circles.
But seriously possible to consider the prophets, of any
is it
description, as the representatives of the traditions which

Deuteronomy brought to life again? Furthermore, the
prophetic element in Deuteronomy is no stream of tradition,
the contents of which can be
precisely determined and
defined: it is rather of the nature of a
general religious trend
found more or less everywhere in
Deuteronomy. In so far,
it isno more than a sign of the time in which
Deuteronomy
is
speaking. The faith of that time had the phenomenon of
prophecy so strongly stamped upon it that it would rather
be surprising if so broadly based a presentation of the faith
had been able to escape this contemporary influence. It is
far from easy to determine what the
prophetic contribution
to Deuteronomy is; it is at its clearest, relatively, in the
picture of Moses, where he is drawn as the ideal man of
God. 1 That in itself, however, shows that
Deuteronomy
cannot be assuming a specifically prophetic tradition, for
it is concerned much more with Moses than with what is
prophetic. The case is that when the author of Deuter-

onomy represented Moses as the ideal man of God, the
categories and conceptions which lay to hand were those
derived from the prophetic movements dominant in his
time. We may therefore put
it thus: the
prophetic in
Deuteronomy merely a form
is of expression, and a means
of making the book's claim to be Mosaic real. We
certainly
cannot convert this proposition, for it is impossible to
designate the prophets in this case it would concern rather
the prophets of salvation as the representatives of
speci-
fically Mosaic traditions.
Especially Deut 18.15 f; but cp. also the picture of the suffering
1
intercessor, Deut. 9 passim.

CHAPTER SIX
THE PURPOSE OF
DEUTERONOMY
DEUTERONOMY purports to be Moses' farewell speech to
Israel. Now this which is addressed by Moses is, of
Israel
course, completely different from the one which stood at

the foot of Mt. Horeb, as the latter is represented in the
tradition.It knows Palestine with all its religious tempta-
tions, it has a king and a graded civil service; economically

its life is no longer the patriarchal, but it has entered upon
the stage of an economy based on currency, with all its
it knows the prophets, and has
perilous consequences;
indeed already had unpleasant experiences with these men;
and so on. These facts raise in the simplest terms the one
big question which lay behind Deuteronomy. It is this:
this Israel has in actual fact no longer any points of com-
parison with the Israel which in the past stood at Horeb;

is it separated from the events at Horeb by a very long and
extremely incriminating history; in the later regal period its

whole religious and political life had been called in question;
is it then still Jahweh's people? The answer is clear and
unambiguous it is to this Israel, the people just as it was,

:
that Deuteronomy proclaims Jahweh's election and promise

of salvation. We are thus confronted with the following
six centuries wasted in sin and constant
phenomenon:
apostacy are cancelled out and Israel is set once more at
Horeb to hear Jahweh's word of salvation, which has not
yet lost its power. This word of salvation runs : 'This day
thou artbecome the people of Jahweh thy God.' 1 'This
day' appears throughout the Deuteronomic utterances, and
it directs a particularly forcible emphasis on the existential
quality of this fonn&praedicatio impii. It is the tremendous

'here and now' in the divine election that lies at the back of
Deuteronomy's attempt to re-comprehend the Israel that
1
Deut. 27.9; cp. 26.16-19.
70
The Purpose of Deuteronomy
was now in the grip of an inner disintegration as the holy

people of God. All the departments of Israel's life are laid
claim to in the light of this great new order, in which the
statute (6.4) about the unity and the singleness of Jahweh
operates specially for the cult, as the means by which all is

bound together and united. 1 Deuteronomy is particularly
severe in its polemic against any syncretism with the
Canaanite nature religions. Jahweh is also the bestower of

all the natural blessings. Indeed, one can actually designate
Deuteronomy's programme as the establishment of the pure

2
Jahweh faith in the agricultural environment of Canaan.
Thus we have in Deuteronomy the most comprehensive
example of a theological re-statement of old traditions in
which the later Israel could become at the same time the
message of Jahweh.
With the election of Israel dawned salvation. IsraeFs
relation to Jahweh without tension, because Jahweh's
is
offer is an all-sufficient one. There is no need on man's
part to seek, or to strive by means of religious works which

might or might not achieve thek purpose, to compel
salvation and partake in it.
Tor law which I give thee this day is not too hard
this
for thee, and not too far off. It is not in heaven, that thou
shouldest have to say, Who will go up for us to heaven, to
bring it to us and proclaim to us, that we may do according
to it ? Neither is it beyond the sea, that thou shouldest have
strong impression of unity, and

1 In the means used to create the
bind so many disparate materials together, a special part is pkyed by

conceptual generalisations which appear for the first time in Deuter-
onomy: mifi now designates the revelation of the will of Jahweh
simply, n^fll the land which all Israel is to inherit, ÔT the word of
revelation (O. Grether : Name und Wort Gottes, B.Z.A.W. 64, pp. 120 ff),
etc.
2 P. on the other hand seems completely uninterested in the problem
of Israel's settlement in Canaan. Consequently it holds on to tie camp
conception. For P. the tribes in camp grouped
round the Tabernacle
are the original form of Israel's life laid down by Jahweh.
to say, Who will go over the

sea for us, to bring it to us,
and proclaim it to us, that we may do according to it ? But
the word is very nigh to thee, in thy mouth and in thine
heart, so that thou art able to do according to it" (30.11-14).
of the commandments is thus in no wise the
Fulfilling
pre-supposition of salvation; indeed, the proclamation of
the commandments takes place contemporaneously with the
election, and therefore obedience can in any case only
follow the divine saving activity.
upon We
may say that
this question of obedience, that is, its
possibilities and
limits, are no problem at all for Deuteronomy. To be sure,
the divine proclamation of salvation has occasionally a
certain conditional note in it, too, in Deuteronomy; then,
the realisation of the salvation, especially the promise of
the land, is certainly not independent of the accomplishment
of obedience. 1 The legal element is stronger in the pro-
clamation of the blessings and curses. On the one side,
the promise of blessing means merely that, in case of
obedience, Jahweh's proclamation of salvation remains con-
stant over Israel; on the other, since the chapter containing
the curses, 28 has been expanded and overloaded with
f,
secondary additions, there is a considerable narrowing of

the present salvation offered to the people of God by
2
Deuteronomy. Thus Deuteronomy shows, especially in
its later additions, a certain preponderance of Law over
Gospel.
The relation of Deuteronomy to eschatology is a problem
in more respects than one. It can be said at once that the
book stands absolutely apart from all the broad popular
eschatological conceptions that we find taken up by the
prophets and modified by them as they wanted, conceptions
which obviously occupied a large place in the thought of
1
e.g., 6.18; 8.1; ii. 8 ff; 16.20; 19.8
2 M. Noth: In piam memoriam (A. ûlmerinc^). Abbandlungen der
Herder-Gesellschaft md des Herder-Institutes %u Riga, 6 Bd., Nr. 3,
ff.
1938, pp. 127
7*
The Purpose of Deuteronomy
Israel in the period of the monarchy. When we read the

prophets, Deuteronomy's proclamation of salvation as a
present reality seems to come as if from another world.
None the less, Deuteronomy is not without the element of
expectation. The situation in which Israel is imagined to
be, listening to the book itself, is characteristic: at Horeb
Israel receives its election at the hands of Jahweh as a present
and already fully achieved reality, but the gifts appertaining
to salvation which are connected with the election, the
fiÎB, the HDl? and the HrHl/p, become effective
only
with the entry into the Promised Land. We have to re-
member that, while the Israel which Deuteronomy addresses
is in actual fact the Israel of the later regal period, the book
contends paradoxically that Israel is still faced with the full

realisation of Jahweh's promise of salvation.
73
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE DEUTERONOMISTIC THEOLOGY

OF HISTORY IN
THE BOOKS OF KINGS
A SHORT time ago a detailed study of the Deuteronomistic
histories appeared in Noth's l]berliefemngsgeschichtliche
Studien: closed what was a grievous and mortifying gap
it
in our writing on the Old Testament. 1 Noth subjected the

literary question to a fresh revision, but what has now
become abundantly and conclusively clear is that this great
work is not the outcome of a literary 'process of redaction' :
it merits without
qualification the rare and exalted title of
historical writing. On the one hand, all kinds of older
historical material have been gathered together and com-
bined into a thematic unity by means of a comprehensive
framework. On the other, the choice of material is obviously
restricted,and for all that lies beyond the theology of
history which is to be demonstrated, the reader is continually
directed to the sources. This is the exercise of the function of
the historian in the strictest sense of the word. It is cer-
tainly historical writing claiming to be very distinctive in

kind it has actually a unique theological stamp upon it
and that explains why it was misconceived in the period
which kept believing that it had to measure it only by the
positivist ideal of an 'exact writing of history'. It is only this
specific theological claim which the work makes that is to be
discussed here. The literary technique of the Deuterono-
mist the way in which he welds together into unity, with
the help of a comprehensive framework, all kinds of sources
for a king's reign and, apart from that, refrains from any
contribution of his own except occasional parenthetical
observations and comments that literary technique must
1 M. Noth:
UberKeferungsgeschichtliche Studien. Schriften der Konigs-
berger Gel. GeselL, 18. Jahr9 Geisteswiss. K/asse, Heft 2, 1943.
74
The Deuteronomistic Theology of History
here be taken for granted as known. 1 We call these histories

Deuteronomistic because they take as normative for their
judgement of the past certain standards laid down either
2
exclusively or chiefly in Deuteronomy.
We
know that through Deuteronomy the question of the
pure Jahweh cult in Jerusalem, as against all the Canaanite
cults of the high places, became articulus stantis et cadentis
eccksiae. It is by this criterion, which had become absolutely
obligatory for his own time, that the Deuteronomist now
measures the past; and it is well known that, in the light of
it, the sovereigns of the kingdom of Israel are judged
all
c
negatively, because they all walked in the sins of Jeroboam,

the son of Nebat*. Of the sovereigns of the kingdom o
Judah, however, five receive qualified approval, and two
(Hezekiah and Josiah) actually unrestricted approval. To
the secular historian such a method of judgement will
appear unjust and crude. As a matter of fact, the Deuter-
onomist makes absolutely no claim to appraise the kings at a
given moment in relation to the particular historical situ-
ation confronting them. 3 The judgement passed on the kings
is not arrived at on the basis of a balanced reckoning of a
number opros and wns, by means of an average, as it were,

of their achievements and their sins of omission. It is in
keeping with this work's peculiar theological claim, which
1
The present investigation is restricted in principle to the Deuter-
onomistic parts of the great historical complex. We can dispense with
an exact and detailed delimitation of the Deuteronomistic framework
and the other Deuteronomistic additions because, in all that is essential,
the O.T. Introductions are in agreement about the literary division of
these parts.
The justification for confining our study to the Books of Kings is
2
that in every respect a new section begins for the Deuteronomist with
Solomon, and it is only then that the histories come to their real
subject.
3
How
completely different is the way in which the author of the
history of the succession of David is able to let the reader see the
import of the political and human complications in which the king was
involved as a chain, of sombre necessity 1 von Rad: Archivfur ~Kultur-
geschichte, 1944, pp. 33 S.
75
is that it presumes to know the final judgement of God, that

so much more about the kings in the sense of
is said
'either or' than in the sense of "and and*. It follows that

the Deuteronomist is not concerned with the various good
and evil actions, but with the one fundamental decision on
which he was convinced judgement and salvation finally
depended. In this respect the Deuteronomistic histories
definitely allow the kings the moment of a free decision for
or against Jahweh, while the so-called classical histories in
Israelhad portrayed men really more as the passive objects
of God's designs in history.
The question whether objective justice was done to these
kings, in that they were measured against a norm which did
not in apply in their time, is possibly a specifically
fact
modern one. None the less, the question does present itself
here in this form: was the standard applied by the Deuter-
onomist, viz. the insistence on centralised worship, some-
thing absolutely new in Israel? Admittedly it was 'unknown'
in the monarchical period, but we did see that Deuteronomy
does not conceive of itself as something new, and it is, more-
over, in fact only a large-scale up-to-date readaptation of the
most varied standards that did apply in the past. And the
history of the cult shows us that in its early period, the
period of the old amphictyony, Israel was in fact conscious
to a great extent of her necessary conformity to this norm.
The Deuteronomistic standard of judgement thus appears
in a somewhat different light from that in which we
pre-
viously believed it necessary to view it. With all that,
one may safely reckon that possibly at all periods of
history, the past, viewed in the light of criteria which have
become obligatory for a later age, has always to a certain
extent been put in the wrong subjectively, but that never-
theless from that time onwards the objective
right and
necessity of such judgements cannot be doubted.
The great events in the shadow of which the Deuter-
onomist wrote were the catastrophes of 721 and 586,
76
happenings which in his eyes had undoubted theological

significance; they expressed Jahweh's rejection of both
kingdoms; ever since, saving history with Israel had been
at a standstill. This is the clue to the understanding of the
Deuteronomist: he is writing at a time when there was
distress and perplexity because no saving history was taking
place. It is possible to connect the lacunae which have often

been noticed in these histories with this quite unprecedented
situation. In the circumstances, the correct standards for
many of the facts of the past may actually no longer have

been at the Deuteronomist's disposal. But of course the
Deuteronomist's sole concern is a theological interpretation
of the catastrophes which befell the two kingdoms. Con-
sequently, he examined past history page by page with that
in view, and the result was quite unambiguous the fault :
was not Jahweh's; but for generations Israel had been

piling up an ever-increasing burden of guilt and faithless-
ness, so that in the end Jahweh had had to reject his people.
The demand for centralised worship is certainly not the
only one which the Deuteronomist, following Deuteronomy,
makes of the kings; he asks if the kings trusted Jahweh
(HD2 z Kings 18.5), he asks if they were 'perfect' with
Jahweh (Till? ^ Kings 11.4; 15.3, 14). Of course it
tf?# i
predominantly cultic sins which he mentions. He is very

1
is
often content with the awkwardly redundant statement that

a king had not followed the 'ordinances, commandments
and statutes of Jahweh*. A very decided flagging of de-
scriptive power is noticeable here. What the Deuteronomist
means is obviously that the king in question and his period
had not been able to satisfy the whole of the divine demand
for obedience. It is therefore the question concerning
complete obedience that the Deuteronomist puts to the
kings.
1 of the kingdom of
Especially in the great epilogue to the fall
Israel in 2.
Kings 17.7 flf.
77
This question of obedience is the first fundamental ele-

ment in the Deuteronomistic presentation of the history.
But alongside and continually
this subjective co-efficient,
corresponding to it, there now appears in Israel's history
another, an objective one. meet it We

when we enquire
about the manner of the divine intervention in history.
The Deuteronomist's conception is manifestly this Jahweh :
revealed his commandments to Israel; in case of disobedience

he threatened her with severe punishment, with the judge-
ment of total destruction, in fact. That had now actually
3
taken place. Jahweh's words had been "fulfilled in history
they had not Tailed', as the Deuteronomist is also fond of
1
saying. There thus exists, the Deuteronomist means, an
inter-relationship between the words of Jahweh and history
in the sense that Jahweh's word, once uttered, reaches its
goal under all circumstances in history by virtue of the

2
.
power inherent in it. This conception can be reconstructed
very clearly from the Deuteronomist's work. We refer to
that system of prophetic predictions and exactly noted
fulfilments which runs through the Deuteronomist's work.
With it we may speak of a theological schema^ no less than
in the case of the "framework schema\ even if it is used
more freely and with greater elasticity, corresponding to
the nature of the subject.
(i) Prophecy:
Jahweh establishes the kingdom of David at the hand

of Nathan. His son will build a house for Jahweh.
2 Sam. 7.13.
Fulfilment:
'
i
Kings Jahweh hath fulfilled the word that he
8.20:
spake/ Solomon has ascended the throne and built

the temple.
1
Josh. 21.45; 2 3 I 4J J
Kings 8.56; 2 Kings 10.10.
2 word
Deut. 32.47: Jahweh's is not Vain'
7
(2) Prophecy:
i
Kings 11.29 ff: Ahijah the Shilonite: ten tribes will
be taken from Solomon's kingdom, because he has
forsaken Jahweh, worshipped other gods and not
walked in Jahweh's ways.
Fulfilment:
i
Kings 12.15^: Rehoboam rends the kingdom, bring-
ing on the catastrophe: "but the cause was from Jahweh
n
to establish (2 |?n) the word which he spake
by Ahijah
the Shilonite to Jeroboam the son of Nebat/
(3) Prophecy:
1
Kings 13 An unknown prophet: At Bethel a descen-
:
dant of David Josiah will slay the priests of the

high places on the altar, and burn men's bones upon it.
Fulfilment:
2 Kings 23.16-18: Josiah pollutes the altar at Bethel by
burning men's bones upon it 'according to the word
of Jahweh which the man of God had proclaimed . '. . .
(4) Prophecy:
i
Kings 14.6 Ahijah the Shilonite: Jeroboam, whom
ff:
Jahweh made prince over Israel, has done evil above

all that were before him. Therefore
Jeroboam's king-
dom will be rooted up, cas a man taketh away dung,
till it be all
gone'.
Fulfilment:
iKings 15.29: The usurper Baasha exterminates the
house of Jeroboam 'according to the word of Jahweh
which he had spoken by his servant Ahijah the
Shilonite . . . '.
(5) Prophecy:
i
Kings 1 6. i ff: Jehu ben Hanani: Baasha, raised by
Jahweh to be prince over Israel, has walked in the ways
of Jeroboam and made Israel to sin, therefore it will
befall him in his house as befell the house of Jeroboam*
79
Fulfilment:
i
Kings 16.12: "Thus did Zimri destroy all the house
of Baasha, according to the word of Jahweh which he
had spoken to Baasha by the prophet Jehu/
(6) Prophecy:
Josh. 6.26: 'Whoso rebuildeth Jericho, let the founda-

tion stone cost him his first-born, and the setting up
of the gates his youngest/
Fulfilment:
i
Kings 16.34: Hiel rebuilds Jericho: 'At the cost of
his first-born Abiram did he lay the foundation, and at
the cost of his youngest Segub did he set up the gates,
according to the word of Jahweh which he had spoken
by Joshua the son of Nun/
(7) Prophecy:
i
Kings 22.17: Micaiah ben Imlah: Israel will be scat-
tered and without shepherds; let every man return to
his house in peace.
Fulfilment:
i
Kings 22.35 f: (without being specially pointed tfut
by the Deuteronomist) Ahab succumbs to his wound.
Every man to his house!
(8) Prophecy:
Kings 2i.2i f Elijah's prophecy of

i : doom against
Ahab and his house.
Fulfilment:
1 Kings 21.27-29: Because Ahab humbled himself at
the word of judgement, it will only overtake his son.
(Cp. 2 Kings 9.7 )
(9) Prophecy:
2 Kings 1.6 :
Elijah: Ahaziah of Judah will not recover;
he must die.
80
Fulfilment:
2 Kings 1.17: Ahaziah died 'according to the word of
Jahweh that Elijah had spoken'.
(10) Prophecy:
2 Kings 21.10 ff: Unknown jptophets Because of
c
the
:
sins of ManasseB. evil will co'me upon Jerusalem, such

that whoso heareth of it, both his ears shall tingle'.
Fulfilment:
2 Kings 24.2: Jahweh summons the Chaldeans, etc.,
against Judah, 'according to the word of Jahweh which
he had spoken by his servants the prophets'. 2 Kings
23.26 is also important: in spite of Josiah's reform
Jahweh does not leave off his great wrath. Because of

Manasseh's provocations, Jahweh had resolved to
destroy Judah as well.
(n) Prophecy:
2 Kings 22.15 ff: Huldah: Josiah will be gathered to
his fathers and not see die evil that comes upon
Jerusalem.
Fulfilment:
2 Kings 23.30: The body of Josiah, who had fallen at
Megiddo, is brought to Jerusalem and buried there.

Of course, this conspectus can only give a rough indi-
cation of the theological structure of the Deuteronomistic
historical work within the Books of Kings. In actual fact,
in this connection the Deuteronomist demands the keenest
attentiveness on the part of his readers they are to discern
:
this all-prevailing correspondence between the divine word
spoken by prophets and the historical events even in

those cases where notice is not expressly drawn to it. (It
was to illustrate it that the Deuteronomist took in the
Elijah and the Isaiah stories as well.)
1
^
general we may
1
Whether we can speak of an account of the prophet Ahijah the
and put it on the same plane as the
Shilonite as a 'well-rounded unit'
81
take it axiomatic that the Deuteronomist has given

as
explicit notices of a fulfilment mostly in those cases where

the matter was not so directly obvious to the reader,
while he could dispense with them at any point where the
history spoke for itself. On the other hand, we have to
bear in mind that on the literary side the Deuteronomist is
working almost exclusively with traditional material which
in its turn does not now everywhere fit in quite smoothly
with the Deuteronomist's theological principles. In many
respects it has its own import and then again cannot be
easily adapted to the Deuteronomistic schema. We tend to
overestimate the freedom which antiquity used with tra-
ditional material.
Taken individually, these prophecies raise a considerable
number of questions. There need be no doubt that, as far
as concerns source, these citations go back in most cases to
genuine prophetic words. That is evidenced by the pictorial

phraseology, which is quite undeuteronomic, and the
farallelismus membrorum in which to some extent these
oracles are still preserved. 1 There cannot, however, have
been a very large store of such sources accessible to our
author, else he would not have cited three times and
c
indeed against three different kings the words him that
dieth , . . in the city shall the dogs eat, and him that dieth
in the field shall the fowls of the air eat/ 2 As to who this
'Deuteronomistic' prophet was, the material at our disposal
is altogether too
slight to allow conclusions to be drawn.
One would be reluctant to set the prophecy of an Ahijah or
accounts of Elijah, Elisha and Isaiah, as Noth does (pp. tit., p. 121),
seems very questionable to me. At least the literary question is then
completely different, for, contrary to what we find in the other accounts,
in the account of Ahijah the Deuteronomist's hand has had the decisive
part. Ahijah's prophecy now stands entirely within the context of the
specifically Deuteronomistic question as to Jahweh's plans with the
heirs to the throne and kingdom of David.
1
e.g. in i
Kings 14.10, 15; 16.4; 2 Kings 21.13.
2 i
Kings 14.11; 16.4; 21.24.
82
a Jehu ben Hanani or the unknown

prophet of 2 Kings
21.10 ff on the same plane as that of the so-called
writing
prophets. That prophecy seems to be entirely lacking in the
wider conceptions of history. The focus is solely on the
national history of Israel, and there it
speaks of Jahweh
immanent in history, acting in judgement or mercy. None
the less, it could well be that
prophecy of a fairly distinct
stamp is discernible behind this body of prediction outlined
in rigid schematic form. The Deuteronomist' s own con-
ception of the main element in the prophetic office comes

to expression in 2 Kings 17.1 3:
Jahweh gives testimony
C^VD) through it, in virtue of which the prophets call for
repentance and the keeping of the commandments.
This Deuteronomistic theology of history, the theology
of the word finding certain fulfilment in history, and on
that account the creative word in history, may be described,
in respect of its origin, as pertaining to old
prophecy. It is
interesting now to observe how fundamental the Deuteron-
omist makes this presupposition of his that the history of
the two kingdoms is simply the will of Jahweh and the
word of Jahweh actualised in history. As such it is meaning-
ful; thus, the course of events in both the kingdoms is to
be 'read* looking backwards. The way in which the
Deuteronomist uses the actual course of history as a theo-
logical criterion appears in his presentation of the history
of the two kingdoms from quite different standpoints.
The doom of the northern kingdom is really sealed
with the first sin, the apostacy of Jeroboam I. 1 The
stereotyped observation about the real guilt of all the other
kings is that they walked in the sin of Jeroboam. However,
the Deuteronomist had to reckon with the complication
that Jahweh had in actual fact spared this kingdom for
another two centuries. This enigma, which was in reality,
1
i Kings 14.16:
'(Jahweh) shall give Israel up because of the sins
which Jeroboam committed and which he led Istael to commit.*
8?
of course, no more than a postponement of punishment, finds

which relative
itsexplanation in Jahweh's grace, through
was not passed over
good, even in kings who were rejected,
uncredited. Ahab humbled himself at the word of judge-
ment, and so the judgement upon his house was
not fulfilled
in his own lifetime (i Kings 21.29). Jehu had, in spite of
done some things which were well-pleasing
his rejection,
to Jahweh, and therefore his children unto the fourth
the throne of Israel (2 Kings
generation were to sit upon
at the
10.30; 15.12). During a time of severe oppression
hands of the Syrians, Jehoahaz had implored Jahweh's
and had thereupon held out his hand in grace
help, Jahweh
over the sinful kingdom (2 Kings 13.23; 14.26). But then
the tragic end did come, and in his great epilogue in 2 Kings
ly.yff the Deuteronomist shows
how transgression of
in its
Jahweh's commandments had brought judgement
"which the
train. The sources theological sources, that is
Deuteronomist uses to build up his picture are perfectly

to him Jahweh' s will as shown in the
plain: he had given
commandments in Deuteronomy, and the actual course of
the history of the northern kingdom, as Jahweh's word
which is creative of history, had shaped it.
With the history of the kingdom of Judah the position is
different. That history, too, appears in the first instance as
a story of human disobedience, with the cloud of God's
judgement gathering ever thicker. How in this case is the
divine forbearance, the much more extended span of divine
patience, to be explained?
This leads us to mention an
element in the Deuteronomist' s theology of history which
we have so far left out of consideration.
c
says to Solomon in i Kings 11.13

... but I will
Jahweh :
not rend away all the kingdom; one tribe will I leave to thy
son, for David my servant's sake, and for Jerusalem's sake,
which I have chosen/
Ahijah the Shilonite says to Jeroboam in Kings 11.32:
i
"... but the one tribe shall remain to him for David my
84
servant's sake, and for Jerusalem's sake, which I have

chosen.*
*
11.36: . . . but one tribe will I leave to his son,
n
that a light may always (Q ^D"73) remain before me for
my servant David C^^ ^-7 : *^) in Jerusalem, the city

which have chosen, to let my name dwell there/
I
Of Abijam the Deuteronomist says in i Kings 15.4: ' . . .
but for David's sake Jahweh left him a light in Jerusalem,

in that he set up his son and let Jerusalem remain.'
Of Jehoram the Deuteronomist says in 2 Kings 8. 19:
*
. but Jahweh would not destroy Judah for his servant
. .
David's sake, as he had promised to give him always a light

(for his children)/
By the light which Jahweh promised to David the
Deuteronomist means, of course, what is said in the Nathan
prophecy in 2 Sam. 7, where Jahweh legitimises and guar-
antees the Davidic dynasty, 1 It is interesting to see how in
the Deuteronomist this prophetic tradition is fused with
the Deuteronomic theology of the cult-place and the name;
that is, how two traditional elements
of completely different
provenance are here united into a whole (cp. especially
i
Kings 11.36). But the Deuteronomist does not mention
this deuteronomised Nathan prophecy simply to give the
reason for Jahweh's patient forbearance with the kingdom
of Judah. This traditional element has an essentially greater
part to play.
David says to Solomon in i Kings 2.4: May Jahweh
'
establish the word: there shall not fail a . . . man to sit on
the throne of Israel.'
Solomon
says in his prayer at the consecration
of the
temple in i Kings 8.20: "Now hath Jahweh fulfilled
the
word that he spake; for I am risen up in the room of my
father and have set myself on the throne of Israel, as Jahweh
1 Pre-deuteronomic references for this expression are 2 Sam. 21.17;

Ps. 132.17 (cp. 2 Sam. 14.7).
85
promised, and have built the house for the name

of Jahweh,
the God of Israel/
On the same occasion in i Kings 8.25 "And now, Jahweh,
:
thou God of Israel, keep with thy servant David the

promise thou gavest him: there shall never fail thee a man
to sit before me on the throne of Israel/
Jahweh says to Solomon in i Kings 9.5 "... so will I
:
let kingdom remain upon Israel for ever,

the throne of thy
as I promised thy father David: there shall never fail thee
a man upon the throne of Israel/
These passages, like the others quoted above, all belong,
from the point of view of literary criticism, to the special
theological schema within and around
which the Deuter-
onomist built his work, and therefore have a special
significance for the ends he had in
view. They exhibit a
traditional element which is wholly undeuteronomic, namely,
a cycle of definite Messianic conceptions.
This leads us at once to ask how the picture of David is
built up particular. The actual history

in of David is
noticeably free from Deuteronomistic additions. This is
astonishing in view of the constant mention of David in

the course of the history that follows as the prototype of a
king who was well-pleasing to Jahweh. The reasons for it
are,however, probably only literary: David was treated in
a document which was of such range and so well con-
structed that in face of it the Deuteronomist had to refrain
from his usual technique of inserting theological glosses
and comments in brackets. Apart from the well-known
distortion of the meaning of the Nathan prophecy in 2 Sam.
7.13, it is only at the end of the history of David that the
Deuteronomist makes any comment, and even so the
picture which he himself had of David is not made dear.
But the case is remarkably different in the Deuteronomistic
presentation of post-Davidic history.
i
Kings 3.3 : Solomon walked in the statutes of his father
David (TT? nljJUfl).
86
The Deuteronomhtic Theology of History
5.17: David was prevented from building the temple by

his wars, but David is still the
spiritual originator of the
building of the temple.
S.iyf: David proposed to build the temple; in that he

did well.
9.4: David walked before Jahweh "in integrity of heart

and uprightness' 0^51 22V
11.4: David's heart was perfect with Jahweh

(njrr
1 1. 6: David followed Jahweh completely
11.33: David walked in Jahweh's ways and did what was

well-pleasing to him (HlH? TS7? Iftftj rnfc).
11.38: David walked in Jahweh's ways, did what was

well-pleasing to him, and kept his statutes and command-
ments.
14.8 David kept Jahweh's commandments and followed

:
him with all his heart, doing only what was well-pleasing to
Jahweh ptn pn nfosft m'rte ^08
15.3 : David's heart was perfect with Jahweh.
15.5 David did what was well-pleasing to Jahweh and

:
turned not aside from anything that he commanded him all

the days of his life, save only in the matter of Uriah the
Hittite (T*n W *7
'
15.11: Asa did what was well-pleasing to Jahweh, like

his ancestor David.
2Kings 14.3 Amaziah did what was well-pleasing to

:
Jahweh, but not like his ancestor David.

16.2 : Ahaz did not do what was well-pleasing to Jahweh,
like his ancestor David.
18.3: Hezekiah did what was well-pleasing to Jahweh

wholly as David did.
21.7: Jahweh said to David (sic) and his son Solomon:

In this temple and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out
of all the tribes of Israel, will I cause name to dwell my
for ever.
22.2 :
Josiah walked wholly in the way of his ancestor
David.
This list, too, is wholly made up of sentences of the
Deuteronomist. The picture has only one conceivable
meaning: it is David, and not, as was often said, Solomon,
who the king after the heart of the Deuteronomist. He

is
is the
prototype of the perfectly obedient anointed, and
therefore the model for all succeeding kings in Jerusalem.
But what kind of a David is this, who walked before
Jahweh 112^ M^Dp^ whose heart
perfect with is
Jahweh, and who did only (pD) what was well-pleasing to

Jahweh ? Unquestionably it is not the David of the succes-
sion stories, that
essentially contradictory personality,
tenacious, persevering and vigorous in public life, but
dangerously weak in his own household, a man who was
a time ensnared in
many guilt, yet in the end graciously led
by Jahweh through every entanglement. This quite human
picture has now had a completely independent cycle of con-
ceptions superimposed upon it, namely, that of the ideal,
theocratic David,
exemplary in obedience. The Deuter-
onomist thus brings evidence in the first place for a cycle
of Messianic conceptions which must have been
living in
his time. It is hard to
say how and where this picture
originated, of a David whose dross was all refined away.
In Ps. 132 we meet again the
picture of the David who was
exemplary in obedience. But above all it seems to pre-
1
suppose Isaiah too. Be that as it may; in the acceptance of
1
e.g. Isa. 1.2 1.
88
The Denteronomistic Theology of History
this strong tradition the Deuteronomist has
gone farthest
from the theological rock whence he was hewn, namely
1
Deuteronomy and the large place which the Deuterono-
;
mist gives this tradition in his work shows that the Deuter-
onomic tradition had not been able to assert itself in all its
purity. The Messianic cycle of conceptions, which was
obviously very strong, had forced its way into it and made
itself good. The
attempt so deliberately to set the whole
business of the temple to David's credit is truly astonishing.
Perhaps there was something which made it necessary for
the temple tradition with its comprehensive cultic content
to be brought still more under the aegis of David and so
gain fresh authorisation.
Finally, the Deuteronomist for his part was only being
true to the tradition given to him. There was given to him
as a principle creative in
history not only the word of
Jahweh's curse upon the transgressors of his command-
ments, as appears in Deuteronomy, but also the prophetic
it
word of promise in the Davidic covenant. The Deuter-

onomistic presentation of the history had to reckon with
both of these given quantities; the Deuteronomist in fact
attributes the form and the course of the history of the
kingdom of Judah to their mutual creative power. This

enables us to set down an important conclusion: according
to the Deuteronomistic presentation, Jahweh's word is
active in the history of Judah, creating that history, and that
in a double capacity: i. as law, judging and destroying; 2.
as gospel i.e., in the David prophecy, which was constantly
being fulfilled saving and forgiving. It is the Nathan

promise which runs through the history of Judah like a
Kar^v and wards off the long merited judgement from
the kingdom Tor the sake of David*.
Immediately the question arises But how did it turn out
:
c
1
According to the Deuteronomist's writing, the representative
concern for maintaining the relation between God and people lies* on
the king (Noth, op. #>., p. 137), a thoroughly undeuteronomic idea.
in the end? Was the word of grace after all the weaker
and was it finally driven from the field of history
coefficient
by the word of judgement ? The actual end of the history of

the kingdom of Judah, as well as the fact that in the later
monarchical period the Deuteronomist no longer says
anything about the saving function of the Nathan promise,
seem to point in this direction. It is as if the *"07 ^PD
lost theirpower to protect as human guilt grew ever greater.
Surely the theological dilemma in which the Deuteronomist
finds himself at the end of his work is palpable: on the one
hand, he was the last person to reduce any of the terrible
severity of the judgement; on the other, he could not, nay
dared not, believe that Jahweh's promise, i.e., the light of
David, had died out for ever; for a word of Jahweh's
uttered into history never fails. Thus there can be no doubt,
in our opinion, that we can attribute a special theological
significance to the final sentences of the Deuteronomist's

work, the notice about the release of Jehoiachin from
prison.
In the thirty-seventh year after the deportation of king
Jehoiachin of Judah, on the twenty-seventh day of the
twelfth month, Evil Merodach, the king of Babylon, in the
first year of his
reign, granted amnesty to king Jehoiachin
of Judah and released him from prison. He spoke kindly
to him and assigned him a place above the place of the
other kings that were with him in Babylon. He was allowed
to put off his prison clothes and eat constantly at the king's
table his life long. His maintenance, the settled daily main-
tenance, was certified to him by the king, as much as he
required, his life long.
To be nothing is expressed in theological terms
sure,
here, but something is just hinted at, and with great reserve.
But for all that a happening is mentioned which had the
significance of .an omen for the Deuteronomist, a fact from
which Jahweh can start again, if it be his will. At all events,
the passage must be interpreted by every reader as an
90
indication that the line of David has not yet come to an

irrevocable end. 1
Noth in his essay has already cut the ground away from
verdicts which in the main are absolutely unfair to this
historical writing. Refusal to enter into the great problems
of internal politics is not to be explained simply as incapa-
city on the part of the Deuteronomist. What the Deuter-
onomist presents is really a history of the creative word of
Jahweh. What fascinated him was, we might say, the
functioning of the divine word in history.
2
And so, in
reality, there lies in this limitation a tremendous claim. The
decisive factor for Israel does not lie in the things which
ordinarily cause a stir in history, nor in the vast problems
inherent in history, but it lies in applying a few very simple
theological and prophetic fundamental axioms about the
nature of the divine word. And so it is only this word of
Jahweh which gives continuity and aspiration to the
phenomenon of history, which unites the varied and in-
dividual phenomena to form a whole in the sight of God.
Thus the Deuteronomist shows with exemplary validity what
saving history is in the Old Testament: that is, a process
of history which is formed by the word of Jahweh con-
tinually intervening in judgement and salvation and directed
towards a fulfilment.
c
1 The verses contain a note which allows for
hope in God's grace*.
L. Kohler: Theol. d. A.T., p. 77.
2
The Deuteronomist makes King Solomon give clear expression
to this relation of correspondence between word and history 'what thou
:
9
hast promised with thy mouth, thou hast fulfilled with thy hand, i Kings
8.24.
INDEX OF BIBLICAL REFERENCES
Bible R*f. Page
Exodus
14.14 48 n
*5-3 46 a
16.10
17.11 57*
19.24 14
20.2 ff 30
2O.24 38
2I.2-II 21
21.22-23 21
22.6-7 21
22.8 21
23.1 ff 18
23.21 38n
25.22 41 n
29.43 39 n
29.45 40 n
42 n
Leviticus
6.8 ff ii n
10.8 ff 11 n, 12 n
IO.IO f 24 n
13 12 n
14.33 ff 12 n
16 ii n
18 26
31
20 II ff'
21 33 f
21. 1 ff
22 34
22.2 ff
34
24 34
*5 34 f
25.23 16 n
93
Index of Biblical References
94
Index of Biblical Referents
Btb/eRef. Page Bible Ref. Page

Judges cont. i cont.
Kings
4-15 48 n 3.3 86
5.2,9 47 n 5.17 87
5-n 63 8,12 42 n
5-12 57& 8.17 f 87
6.3 47 n 8.20 78, 85
7.2 S 47 n 8.24 91 n
7-3 48 n 8.25 86
7-i5 47 n 8.56 78 n
20.2 63 9.4 87
9-5 86
1 Samuel 11.4 77, 87
4.4 ff 39 n 11.6 87
11 ii 48 n 11.13 84
7.10 48 n n.29fF 79
13-3 47 * n-3 2 84 f
13-15 # 47 n 11.33 87
14.6,17 47 n 11.36 3811,85
15.3 48 f 11.38 87
18.17 47 n 12.15 79
21.6 47 n 13 79
25.28 47 n 14.6 S 79
28.6 47 n 14.8 87
30.7 47 n 14.10,15 82 n
14.11 82 n
2 Samuel 14.16 83 n
1. 12 63 14.21 38 n
5.19,23 47 n 15.3 87
6.17 440 15.3, 14 77
7 85 15.4 85
7.6 43 n 15.5 87
7.13 78, 86 15.11 87
ii. ii 47 n 15.29 79
14.7 85 n 16.1 F 79
15. 24 flf
470,670 16.4 82 n
21.17 85 n 16.12 80
27 68 16.34 80
21.21 f 80
i Kings 21.24 82 n
2.4 85 21.27-29 80
2.28,30 44 n 21.29 84
95
Index of biblical References
BttkRef. Page Bible Ref. Page
i
Kings cont. 2 Chronicles
15. iff 57 n
16.7 ff 57 n
20.15 ff 57 n
32.7 ff 57 n
35-3 I4 ] n
Ezra
4>3 I4
4 8 . 14
4 I8 I4
Nehemiah
8.7 f 13
Psalms
-5 44 n
85 n
i-ai 88 n
J 3-3 47 n
30^7 38 n
.
Jeremiah
3.16 f 39 n
6.4 47 n
Ezekiel
1.4 4^ n
1.25 ff 42 n
8.4, 9, 3 42 n
10.4 42 n
23.4 44 n
43-4, 7 42 n
48.35 42 n
CD <
5m
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First published February

Reprinted June 1956

Printed in Great "Britain by

I THE CHARACTER OF DEUTERONOMY

HE DEUTERONOMY'S 'NAME' THEOLOGY

IV DEUTERONOMY AND THE HOLY WAR 45

VI THE PURPOSE OF DEUTERONOMY 70

Index of biblical references 93

again unchanged. The study of the Book of Deuteronomy

then transmitted by Moses either (a) to the Israelites or

of expansion of such old sacral works. Can we then really maintain

Deuteronomiutn, 2nd ed., p. 15)?

of the individual units themselves are actually composed as

speech of God in the I-style, while other units are formu-

proper recipients of cultic revelation.

to is found only in Lev. 10.8; Num. 18.1 ff, 8 ff, 20 ff.

stylisticaberrations and carry absolutely no weight in face of the whole.

in question, of course, only with specific subject-matters.)

points of cultic celebrations and, moreover., only in a later

charge of the kind given to the lay community at second

"But Jeshua, Bani, Sherebiah the Levites instructed

(D*T3/9) the people in the law, while the people stood in

they understood what was read.'

Unfortunately two difficulties stand in the way of the under-

is to be understood, like 2faQ9 in Ezra 4.18, as the

ested in the Levites' duties, we still cannot be expected to

right to understand Deuteronomy along the lines of an

serving the class of material to which Deuteronomy,

namely, the old festival of the renewal of the Covenant at

a literary production, but it still bears the stamp of a cultic

chapters 12-26 appears. For, actually, the most elementary

onomy a difference that is particularly striking just because

in the way Horst does, as pre-deuteronomic "legal inter-

pretation*. The impersonal formulation of the clause would

God, to observe to do all these commandments which I

open thine hand wide and shalt gladly lend to him. . . .

9. 'Beware that the

Deuteronomic criticism has, of course, for long been

tendency stand side by side with others that are completely

already been emphasised that these interpretations are not

series of commandments only can hardly be right. Now

and the admonition to execute righteous judgement in

Thou shalt not wrest judgement.

The fragment immediately takes its place alongside the

rnn; nap ^x psr ?? n^s *j*?~Bfl tf? 16 21>

Thou not plant thee any asheray any tree near

to rank as old. 1 But the reasons he alleges against a

pre-deuteronomic origin are unconvincing. Besides, the

long universally removed from individuals* free disposition,

rnn; nap ^x psr ?? n^s j?~Bfl tf? 16 21>

(nar ala) laarnsi i'3Tnx Vppj; n#g tzrx aft