Page:Keil and Delitzsch,Biblical commentary the old testament the pentateuch, trad James Martin, volume 1, 1885.djvu/18

holy writings. But although this triple classification of the Old Testament canon has reference not merely to three stages of canonization, but also to three degrees of divine inspiration, the three parts of the Old Testament do not answer to the three historical stages in the development of the first covenant. The only division sustained by the historical facts is that of Law and Prophets. These two contain all that was objective in the Old Testament revelation, and so distributed that the Thorah, as the five books of Moses are designated even in the Scriptures themselves, contains the groundwork of the Old Covenant, or that revelation of God in words and deeds which laid the foundation of the kingdom of God in its Old Testament form, and also those revelations of the primitive ages and the early history of Israel which prepared the way for this kingdom; whilst the Prophets, on the other hand, contain the revelations which helped to preserve and develop the Israelitish kingdom of God, from the death of Moses till its ultimate dissolution. The Prophets are also subdivided into two classes. The first of these embraces the so-called earlier prophets (prophetae priores), i.e., the prophetical books of history (Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and the Kings), which contain the revelation of God as fulfilled in the historical guidance of Israel by judges, kings, high priests, and prophets; the second, the later prophets (prophetae posteriores), i.e., the prophetical books of prediction (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the twelve minor prophets), which contain the progressive testimony to the counsel of God, delivered in connection with the acts of God during the period of the gradual decay of the Old Testament kingdom. The former, or historical books, are placed among the Prophets in the Old Testament canon, not merely because they narrate the acts of prophets in Israel, but still more, because they exhibit the development of the Israelitish kingdom of God from a prophet’s point of view, and, in connection with the historical development of the nation and kingdom, set forth the progressive development of the revelation of God. The predictions of the later prophets, which were not composed till some centuries after the division of the kingdom, were placed in the same class with these, as being “the national records, which contained the pledge of the heavenly King, that the fall of His people and kingdom in the world had not taken place in opposition to His will, but expressly in accordance with it, and that He had not therefore