be a master, where is my fear, saith the Lord of hosts unto you, priests, that despise my name." And towards the conclusion: "But unto you that fear my name, shall the sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings."—"Remember ye the law of Moses, my servant, which I commanded him in Horeb." Is not this God Speaking, directly, and without any intervention? Is this Malachi's word, or any man's word? Is it not the very "Word of the Lord" Himself? We see Him here, too, joining the end to the beginning, and showing that it was the same God who spoke the first, that now spoke the last, words,—the same who spoke at Horeb, now spoke at Jerusalem: the same Jehovah spoke all, whether by Moses or by Malachi, or by the many that came between them.
Observe, now, in the next place, the very remarkable means provided for the perfect preservation of those Divine Writings. In the first place, the Law, when fully written out, was committed by Moses, to the care of a special body of persons, the Levites, by whom it was laid up in the ark, by the side of the sacred tables. This appears from the following passage: "When Moses had made an end of writing the words of this law in a book, until they were finished, that Moses commanded the Levites who bore the ark of the Covenant of the Lord, saying. Take this book of the law, and put it in the side of the ark of the Covenant of the Lord your God."[1] He commanded, also, that when the Jews should set up a king over themselves—as he foresaw they would—the new ruler should make a copy of this law for his own guidance: "When he sitteth
- ↑ Deuteronomy xxxi. 24—26.
