Page:Keil and Delitzsch,Biblical commentary the old testament the pentateuch, trad James Martin, volume 1, 1885.djvu/27

fire” (Exo. 24:17; Deu. 4:24; Deu. 9:3); “head and tail” (Deu. 28:13, Deu. 28:44); “a root that beareth gall and wormwood” (Deu. 29:18); “wet to dry” (Deu. 29:19), and many others.
To this we may add the antiquated character of the style, which is common to all five books, and distinguishes them essentially from all the other writings of the Old Testament. This appears sometimes in the use of words, of forms, or of phrases, which subsequently disappeared from the spoken language, and which either do not occur again, or are only used here and there by the writers of the time of the captivity and afterwards, and then are taken from the Pentateuch itself; at other times, in the fact that words and phrases are employed in the books of Moses in simple prose, which were afterwards restricted to poetry alone; or else have entirely changed their meaning. For example, the pronoun JwH and the noun RˆANA are used in the Pentateuch for both genders, whereas the forms JYHI and HRFˆáNA were afterwards employed for the feminine; whilst the former of these occurs only eleven times in the Pentateuch, the latter only once. The demonstrative pronoun is spelt LJ˜HF, afterwards HlEJ˜HF; the infinitive construct of the verbs H›L is often written HO or WO without T, as WVOˆá Gen. 31:38, wHVOˆá Exo. 18:18, HJORi Gen. 48:11; the third person plural of verbs is still for the most part the full form†w, not merely in the imperfect, but also here and there in the perfect, whereas afterwards it was softened into w.
Such words, too, as BYBIJF an ear of corn; TXAtAMiJA a sack; RTAbF dissecuit hostias; RTEbE a piece; LZFWgO a young bird; DBEZE a present; DBAZF to present; ŠM˜RiXE a sickle; JNE‹E a basket; „wQYiHA an existing, living thing; HWESiMA a veil, covering; RQEˆ˜a sprout (applied to men); RJ˜Ši a blood-relation; such forms as RwKZF for RKFZF mas, BVEkE for VBEkE a lamb; phrases like WYmFˆA‰LJE ‡SAJåNE, “gathered to his people;” and many others which I have given in my Introduction, — you seek in vain in the other writings of the Old Testament, whilst the words and phrases, which are used there instead, are not found in the books of Moses.
And whilst the contents and form of the Thorah bear witness that it belongs to the Mosaic age, there are express statements to the effect that it was written by Moses himself. Even in the central books, certain events and laws are said to have been written down. After the defeat of the Amalekites, for example, Moses received orders from God to write the command