Chapter 66

not entitle us to say that the language generally is very original. On the contrary, it is everywhere characterised by borrowed expressions. So much of linguistic difference as actually remains is sufficiently accounted for by the difference of subject: first come laws in a dry matter-of-fact style, then prophecy in a poetical pathetic style. The idiosyncrasy of the writer has no scope in the former case, from the nature of the materials, some of which had already assumed their form before he made use of them. In the latter case he can express himself freely; and it is fair that this should not be overlooked.

The arguments brought forward by Noldeke against the probability that Leviticus xxvi. belongs to chaps. xvii.-xxv. and is not merely tacked on to them, disappear completely on a closer comparison of the literary character of the two pieces. Chapter xxvi. reminds us most strongly of Ezekiel's style, both in thought and language. The most significant passage is Leviticus xxvi. 39. The threat has been uttered that Israel is to be destroyed as a people, and that the remnant which escapes the destroying sword of the enemy is to be carried into exile, to sink under the weight of past calamity and present affliction. Then the speech goes on: "And they that are left of you shall _pine away_ in their iniquity in your enemies' land; and also in the iniquities of their fathers shall they _pine away_. Then they will confess their own sin and the sin of their fathers." In Ezekiel, this confession actually occurs in the mouth of one of his fellow-exiles: they say (xxxiii. 10), "Our transgressions and our sins are heavy upon us, and we _pine away_ in them, and cannot live." In the same strain the prophet says (xxiv. 23) that in his dull sorrow for the death of his wife he will be an emblem of the people: "ye shall not mourn nor weep, but ye shall _pine away_ in your iniquities."

Nor are the other traits wanting in the oration which, as we say, accompanied the Ezekielic colouring of the preceding chapters. We do not expect to find traces of the influence of the Jehovist legislation (further than that Exodus xxiii. 20 seq. formed the model both for Deuteronomy xxviii. and Leviticus xxvi.); but to make up for this we find very distinct marks of the influence of the prophets, the older prophets too, as Amos (verse 31). We can as little conceive the existence of the Book of Ezekiel as of this chapter without the prophetic literature having preceded it and laid the foundation for it.

As for the relation to Deuteronomy, the resemblance of Leviticus xxvi. to Deuteronomy xxviii. is very great, in the arrangement as well as in the ideas. True, there are not many verbal coincidences, but the few which do occur are important. The expressions of xxvi. 16 occur nowhere in the Old Testament but in Deuteronomy xxviii. 22, 65: similarly R)#YM with the meaning it has in verse 45 only occurs in Deuteronomy xix. 14 and in the later literature (Isaiah lxi. 6). The metaphor of the uncircumcised heart (verse 41) only occurs in one other passage in the law, in Deuteronomy; the other instances of it are in prophecy, of contemporary or later date (Jeremiah iv. 4, ix. 24, 25, Ezekiel xliv. 7, 9). There are several more reminiscences of Jeremiah, most of them, however, not very distinct. We may remark on the relation between Jeremiah xvi. 18 in one respect to verse 30, and in another to verse 18 of our chapter. Here the sin is punished sevenfold, in Jeremiah double. The same is said in Isaiah xl. 2, lx. 7; and our chapter has also in common with this prophet the remarkable use of rtc,h (with sin or trespass as object). Did not the chapter stand in Leviticus, it would, doubtless, be held to be a reproduction, some small part of it of the older prophecies, the most of it of those of Jeremiah and Ezekiel: Leviticus xxvi. 34 is actually quoted in 2Chronicles xxxvi 22 as a word of the prophet Jeremiah.

Leviticus xxvi. has points of contact, finally, with the Priestly Code, in PRH WRBH, HQYM BRYT, HTWDH, )NY, (never )NKY), in the excessive use of the accusative participle and avoidance of verbal suffixes, and in its preferring the colourless NTN to verbs of more special meaning.

The only reason for the attempt to separate Leviticus xxvi. from xvii.-xxv. lies in the fact, that the exilic or post-exilic origin of this hortatory and denunciatory oration is too plain to be mistaken. To us, this circumstance can only prove that it belongs to xvii.-xxv., providing a weighty confirmation of the opinion we have already formed on other grounds as to the period which produced these laws.

"If ye will not for all this hearken unto me, but walk contrary to me, then I will also walk contrary to you in fury; and I will chastise you seven times for your sins. Ye shall eat the flesh of your sons and daughters, and I will destroy your high places, and cast down your sun-pillars' and cast your carcasses upon the carcasses of your idols, and my soul shall abhor you. And I will make your cities waste, and bring your sanctuaries into desolation, and I will not smell the savour of your sweet odours. And I will bring the land into desolation, and your enemies who settle therein shall be astonished at it; and I will scatter you among the peoples, and will draw out the sword after you, and your land shall be desolate and your cities ruins. Then shall the land pay her sabbaths all the years of the desolation when you are in your enemies' land: even then shall the land rest and pay her sabbaths. As long as it lieth desolate it shall make up the celebration of the sabbaths which it did not celebrate as long as you dwelt in it. And upon them that are left alive of you I will send a faintness into their hearts in the land of their enemies, and the sound of a shaken leaf shall chase them, and they shall flee as fleeing from a sword, and they shall fall when none pursueth. And they shall fall one upon another as it were before a sword when none pursueth, and there shall be no stopping in the flight before your enemies. And ye shall lose yourselves among the peoples, and the land of your enemies shall eat you up. And they that are left of you shall pine away in their iniquity in your enemies' lands, and also in the iniquities of their fathers shall they pine away. And they shall confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers in regard to their unfaithfulness which they committed against me, and that because they have walked contrary to me, I also walk contrary to them, and bring them into the land of their enemies. Then their uncircumcised heart is humbled, and then they pay their penalty, and I remember my covenant with Jacob, and also my covenant with Isaac, and also my covenant with Abraham, and I remember the land. The land also, left by them, pays its sabbaths, while she lieth without inhabitant and waste, and they themselves pay the penalty of their iniquity because, even because, they despised my judgments, and their soul abhorred my statutes. And yet for all that, when they be in the land of their enemies, I have not rejected them, neither have I abhorred them to destroy them utterly, and to break my covenant with them: for I am Jehovah their God. And I will for their sakes remember the covenant of their ancestors whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the peoples, that I might be their God: I am Jehovah" (xxvi. 27-45).

These words undoubtedly cannot have been written before the Babylonian exile. It is said that the Assyrian exile will explain the passage: but where is there any similarity between the oration before us and the old genuine Isaiah? In Ezekiel's day such thoughts, feelings, and expressions as we have here can be shown to have prevailed: but it would be difficult to show that the fall of Samaria gave rise to such depression at Jerusalem: and Leviticus xxvi. was not written outside Jerusalem, for it presupposes unity of worship. The _Jews_ are addressed here, as in Deuteronomy xxix., xxx., and they had no such lively feeling of solidarity with the deported Israelites as to think of them in connection with such threats. I even think it certain that the writer lived either towards the end of the Babylonian exile or after it, since at the close of the oration he turns his eyes to the restoration. In such prophets as Jeremiah and Ezekiel there is a meaning in such forecasting of the joyful future but here it contradicts both the historical position and the object of the threats, and appears to be explained most naturally as the result of an accident, i.e., of actuality. That in a comparison of Leviticus xxvi. with Jeremiah and Ezekiel, the former cannot claim priority, appears distinctly from the comparative use of the phrase _uncircumised heart_. That phrase originates in Jeremiah (iv. 4, ix. 24 seq.), but in Leviticus xxvi. it is used as a well-known set term. In the same way the phrase _pine away in their iniquity_ is repeated by Ezekiel as he heard it in the mouth of the people. He is its originator in literature; in Leviticus xxvi. it is borrowed. /1/

-- Footnote 1. Horst tries to find a place for Leviticus xxvi. in the last years of king Zedekiah (op. cit. p. 65, 66), but in this he is merely working out his theory that the author was the youthful Ezekiel; and the theory is sufficiently condemned if it leads to this consequence. Delitzsch (Zeitschr. fur Kirchl. Wissench. 1880, p. 619) thinks it a piece of impertinence in me to read out of Ezekiel xxxiii. what that passage says. On Deuteronomy x. 16,