of the mountain, but that Moses alone was permitted to approach
Yahweh. Then followed the theophany, and, as the text stands,
the sacrificial meal (9-11).[1] The conclusion of J’s narrative is given
in ch. xxxiv.,[2] which describes how Moses hewed two tables of stone
at Yahweh’s command, and went up to the top of the mountain,
where he received the words of the covenant and wrote them on the
tables. As it stands, however, this chapter represents the legislation
which it contains as a renewal of a former covenant, also written
on tables of stone, which had been broken (1b, 4a). But the document
from which the chapter, as a whole, is derived, is certainly J,
while the previous references to tables of stone and to Moses’ breaking
them belong to the parallel narrative of E. Moreover, the covenant
here set forth (v. 10 f.) is clearly a new one, and contains no hint
of any previous legislation, nor of any breach of it by the people.
In view of these facts we are forced to conclude that 1b (“like unto
the first . . . brakest”), 4a (“and he hewed . . . the first”) and
v. 28 (“the ten words”) formed no part of the original narrative,[3]
but were inserted by a later Deuteronomic redactor. In the view
of this editor the Decalogue alone formed the basis of the covenant
at Sinai-Horeb, and in order to retain J’s version, he represented it
as a renewal of the tables of stone which Moses had broken.[4]
The legislation contained in xxxiv. 10-26, which may be described as the oldest legal code of the Hexateuch, is almost entirely religious. It prohibits the making of molten images (v. 17), the use of leaven in sacrifices (25a), the retention of the sacrifice until the morning (25b),[5] and the seething of a kid in its mother’s milk (26b); and enjoins the observance of the three annual feasts and the Sabbath (18a, 21-23), and the dedication of the first-born (19, 20, derived from xiii. 11-13) and of the first-fruits (26a).
The parallel collection of E is preserved in xx. 24-26, xxiii. 10-19, to which we should probably add xxii. 29-31 (for which xxiii. 19a was afterwards substituted). The two collections resemble one another so closely, both in form and extent, that they can only be regarded as two versions of the same code. E has, however, preserved certain additional regulations with regard to the building of altars (xx. 24-26) and the observance of the seventh year (xxiii. 10, 11), and omits the prohibition of molten images (xx. 22, 23, appear to be the work of a redactor); xxiii. 20-33, the promises attached to the observance of the covenant, probably formed no part of the original code, but were added by the Deuteronomic redactor; cf. especially vv. 23-25a, 27, 28, 31b-33. The narrative of E relative to the delivery of these laws has disappeared,[6] but xxiv. 3-8 (which manifestly have no connexion with their immediate context) clearly point back to some such narrative. These verses describe how Moses wrote all the words of the Lord in a book and recited them to the people (v. 7) as the basis of a covenant, which was solemnly ratified by the sprinkling of the blood of the accompanying sacrifices.
In the existing text the covenant laws of E (xx. 24-26, xxii. 29-31, xxiii. 10-19) are combined with a mass of civil and other legislation; hence the title “Book of the Covenant” (referred to above, xxiv. 7) has usually been applied to the whole section, xx. 22–xxiii. 33. But this section includes three distinct elements: (a) the “words” (הדברים) found in xx. 24-26, xxii. 29-31, xxiii. 1-10; (b) the “judgments” (המשפטים), xxi. 2–xxii. 17; and (c) a group of moral and ethical enactments, xxii. 18-28, xxiii. 1-9; and an examination of their contents makes it evident that, though the last two groups are unmistakably derived from E, they cannot have formed part of the original “Book of the Covenant”; for the “judgments,” which are expressed in a hypothetical form, consist of a number of legal decisions on points of civil law. The cases dealt with fall into five divisions: (1) The rights of slaves, xxi. 2-11; (2) capital offences, xxi. 12-16 (v. 17 has probably been added later); (3) injuries inflicted by man or beast, xxi. 18-32; (4) losses incurred by culpable negligence or theft, xxi. 33–xxii. 6; (5) cases arising out of deposits, loans, seduction, xxii. 7-17. It is obvious, from their very nature, that these legal precedents could not have been included in the covenant which the people (xxiv. 3) promised to observe, and it is now generally admitted that the words “and the judgments” (which are missing in c. 1 b) have been inserted in xxiv. 3a by the redactor to whom the present position of the “judgments” is due.[7] The majority of critics, therefore, adopt Kuenen’s conjecture that the “judgments” were originally delivered by Moses on the borders of Moab, and that when D’s revised version of Ex. xxi.-xxiii. was combined with JE, the older code was placed alongside of E’s other legislation at Horeb. The third group of laws (xxii. 18-28, xxiii. 1-9) appears to have been added somewhat later than the bulk of xxi.-xxiii. Some of the regulations are couched in hypothetical form, but their contents are of a different character to the “judgments,” e.g. xxii. 25 f., xxiii. 4 f.; others, again, are of a similar nature, but differ in form, e.g. xxii. 18 f. Lastly, xxii. 20-24, xxiii. 1-3 set forth a number of moral injunctions affecting the individual, which cannot have found place in a civil code. At the same time, these additions must for the most part be prior to D, since many of them are included in Deut. xii.-xxvi., though there are traces of Deuteronomic revision.
Now it is obvious that the results obtained by the foregoing analysis of J and E have an important bearing on the history of the remaining section of E’s legislation, viz. the Decalogue (q.v.), Ex. xx. 1-17 (= Deut. v. 6-21). At present the “Ten Words” stand in the forefront of E’s collection of laws, and it is evident that they were already found in that position by the author of Deuteronomy, who treated them as the sole basis of the covenant at Horeb. The evidence, however, afforded (a) by the parallel version of Deuteronomy and (b) by the literary analysis of J and E not only fails to support this tradition, but excites the gravest suspicions as to the originality both of the form and of the position in which the Decalogue now appears. For when compared with Ex. xx. 1-17 the parallel version of Deut. v. 6 ff. is found to exhibit a number of variations, and, in particular, assigns an entirely different reason for the observance of the Sabbath. But these variations are practically limited to the explanatory comments attached to the 2nd, 4th, 5th and 10th commandments; and the majority of critics are now agreed that these comments were added at a later date, and that all the commandments, like the 1st and the 6th to the 9th, were originally expressed in the form of a single short sentence. This view is confirmed by the fact that the additions, or comments, bear, for the most part, a close resemblance to the style of D. They can scarcely, however, have been transferred from Deuteronomy to Exodus (or vice versa), owing to the variations between the two versions: we must rather regard them as the work of a Deuteronomic redactor. But the expansion and revision of the Decalogue were not limited to the Deuteronomic school. Literary traces of J and E in the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 10th commandments point to earlier activity on the part of RJE, while the addition of v. 11, which bases the observance of the Sabbath on P ’s narrative of the Creation (Gen. ii. 1-3), can only be ascribed to a priestly writer: its absence from Deut. v. 6 ff. is otherwise inexplicable. Thus the Decalogue, as given in Exodus, would seem to have passed through at least three stages before it assumed its present form. But even in its original form it could hardly have formed part of E’s Horeb legislation; for (a) both J and E have preserved a different collection of laws (or “words”) inscribed by Moses, which are definitely set forth as the basis of the covenant at Sinai-Horeb (Ex. xxxiv. 10, xxiv. 3 f.), and (b) the further legislation of E in ch. xx.–xxiii. affords close parallels to all the commandments (except the 7th and the 10th), and a comparison of the two leaves no doubt as to which is the more primitive. Hence we can only conclude that the Decalogue, in its original short form, came into existence during the period after the completion of E, but before the promulgation of Deuteronomy. Its present position is, doubtless, to be ascribed to a redactor who was influenced by the same conception as the author of Deuteronomy. This redactor, however, did not limit the Horeb covenant to the Decalogue, but retained E’s legislation alongside of it. The insertion of the Decalogue, or rather the point of view which prompted its insertion, naturally involved certain consequential changes of the existing text. The most important of these, viz. the harmonistic additions to ch. xxxiv., by means of which J’s version of the covenant was represented as a renewal of the Decalogue, has already been discussed; other passages which show traces of similar revision are xxiv. 12-15a, 18b, and xxxiv. 1-6.
The confusion introduced into the legislation by later additions, with the consequent displacement of earlier material, has not been without effect on the narratives belonging to the different sources. Hence the sequence of events after the completion of the covenant on Sinai-Horeb is not always easy to trace, though indications are not wanting in both J and E of the probable course of the history. The two main incidents that precede the departure of the children of Israel from the mountain (Num. x. 29 ff.) are (1) the sin of the people, and (2) the intercession of Moses, of both of which a double account has been preserved.
- ↑ Unless we follow Riedel and read simply “and worshipped” (וישתחוו) instead of “and drank” (וישתו), treating “and ate” (ויאכלו) as a later addition; cf. HDB, extra vol. p. 631 note.
- ↑ Vv. 6-9 are out of place here: they belong to the story of Moses’ intercession in ch. xxxiii.
- ↑ This view is confirmed by (a) a comparison of v. 1b (“and I will write”) with vv. 27, 28; according to the latter, Moses wrote the words of the covenant; and (b) the tardy mention of Moses in 4b; the name would naturally be given at the beginning of the verse.
- ↑ Others suppose that the present position of ch. xxxiv. is due, in the first instance, to RJE, but in view of the other Deuteronomic expansions in vv. 10b-16, 23, 24, it is more probable that J’s version was discarded by RJE in favour of E’s, and was afterwards restored by RD.
- ↑ Reading “the sacrifice of my feasts” for “the sacrifice of the feast of the Passover.”
- ↑ Unless, with Bacon, we are to regard xxiv. 12-14, 18b as original. More probably a later editor has worked up old material of E (of which there are unmistakable traces) in order to include the whole of xx.-xxiii. in the covenant: xxiv. 15-18a are an addition from P.
- ↑ The present text of xxiv. 12 also has probably been transposed in accordance with the view that the “judgment” formed part of the covenant, cf. Deut. v. 31. Originally the latter part of the verse must have run, “That I may give thee the tables of stone which I have written, and may teach thee the law and the commandment.” For further details see Bacon, Triple Tradition of Exodus, pp. 111 f., 132 f.
