This word, which is derived from the Greek Πεντάτευχος, from
ϖέντε, _five_, and τεῦχος, _a volume_, signifies the collection of the
five books of Moses, which are Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and
Deuteronomy. That the Jews have acknowledged the authenticity of the
Pentateuch, from the present time back to the era of their return from
the Babylonish captivity, a period of more than two thousand three
hundred years, admits not a possibility of doubt. The five books of
Moses have been during that period constantly placed at the head of the
Jewish sacred volume, and divided into fixed portions, one of which was
read and explained in their synagogues, not only every Sabbath with the
other Scriptures, but in many places twice a week, and not unfrequently
every evening, when they alone were read. They have been received as
divinely inspired by every Jewish sect, even by the Sadducees, who
questioned the divinity of the remaining works of the Old Testament. In
truth, the veneration of the Jews for their Scriptures, and above all
for the Pentateuch, seems to have risen almost to a superstitious
reverence. Extracts from the Mosaic law were written on pieces of
parchment, and placed on the borders of their garments, or round their
wrists and foreheads: nay, they at a later period counted, with the
minutest exactness, not only the chapters and paragraphs, but the words
and letters, which each book of their Scriptures contains. Thus also the
translation, first of the Pentateuch, and afterward of the remaining
works of the Old Testament, into Greek, for the use of the Alexandrian
Jews, disseminated this sacred volume over a great part of the civilized
world, in the language most universally understood, and rendered it
accessible to the learned and inquisitive in every country; so as to
preclude all suspicion that it could be materially altered by either
Jews or Christians, to support their respective opinions as to the
person and character of the Messiah; the substance of the text being, by
this translation, fixed and authenticated at least two hundred and
seventy years before the appearance of our Lord.
But, long previous to the captivity, two particular examples, deserving
peculiar attention, occur in the Jewish history, of the public and
solemn homage paid to the sacredness of the Mosaic law as promulgated in
the Pentateuch; and which, by consequence, afford the fullest testimony
to the authenticity of the Pentateuch itself: the one in the reign of
Hezekiah, while the separate kingdoms of Judah and Israel still
subsisted; and the other in the reign of his great grandson Josiah,
subsequent to the captivity of Israel. In the former we see the pious
monarch of Judah assembling the priests and Levites and the rulers of
the people; to deplore with him the trespasses of their fathers against
the divine law, to acknowledge the justice of those chastisements which,
according to the prophetic warnings of that law, had been inflicted upon
them; to open the house of God which his father had impiously shut, and
restore the true worship therein according to the Mosaic ritual, 2 Kings
xviii; 2 Chron. xxix; xxx; with the minutest particulars of which he
complied, in the sin-offerings and the peace-offerings which, in
conjunction with his people, he offered for the kingdom and the
sanctuary and the people, to make atonement to God for them and for all
Israel; restoring the service of God as it had been performed in the
purest times. And Hezekiah,” says the sacred narrative, rejoiced, and
all the people, that God had prepared the people; for the thing was done
suddenly,” 2 Chron. xxix, 36; immediately on the king’s accession to the
throne, on the first declaration of his pious resolution. How clear a
proof does this exhibit of the previous existence and clearly
acknowledged authority of those laws which the Pentateuch contains!
But a yet more remarkable part of this transaction still remains. At
this time Hoshea was king of Israel, and so far disposed to countenance
the worship of the true God, that he appears to have made no opposition
to the pious zeal of Hezekiah; who, with the concurrence of the whole
congregation which he had assembled, sent out letters and made a
proclamation, not only to his own people of Judah, 2 Chron. xxx, 1, but
to Ephraim and Manasseh and all Israel, from Beersheba even unto Dan,
that they should come to the house of the Lord at Jerusalem, to keep the
passover unto the Lord God of Israel; saying, Ye children of Israel,
turn again to the Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and he will
return to the remnant of you who are escaped out of the hands of the
kings of Assyria; and be not ye like your fathers and your brethren,
which trespassed against the Lord God of their fathers, who therefore
gave them up to desolation as ye see. Now be ye not stiff-necked, as
your fathers were; but yield yourselves unto the Lord, and enter into
his sanctuary which he hath sanctified for ever, and serve the Lord your
God, that the fierceness of his wrath may turn away from you. So the
posts passed from city to city through the country of Ephraim and
Manasseh even unto Zebulun,” 2 Chron. xxx, 6, &c.
Now, can we conceive that such an attempt as this could have been made,
if the Pentateuch containing the Mosaic code had not been as certainly
recognized through the ten tribes of Israel as in the kingdom of Judah?
The success was exactly such as we might reasonably expect if it were so
acknowledged; for, though many of the ten tribes laughed to scorn and
mocked the messengers of Hezekiah, who invited them to the solemnity of
the passover, from the impious contempt which through long disuse they
had conceived for it; Nevertheless,” says the sacred narrative, divers
of Asher and Manasseh and of Zebulun humbled themselves and came to
Jerusalem; and there assembled at Jerusalem much people, to keep the
feast of unleavened bread in the second month, a very great
congregation; and they killed the passover, and the priests and Levites
stood in their places after their manner, according to the law of Moses,
the man of God. So there was great joy in Jerusalem; for since the time
of Solomon, the son of David, king of Israel, there was not the like at
Jerusalem: and when all this was finished, all Israel that were present
went out to the cities of Judah, and brake the images in pieces, and cut
down the groves, and threw down the high places and the altars out of
all Judah and Benjamin, in Ephraim also and Manasseh, until they had
utterly destroyed them all,” 2 Chronicles xxx, 11; xxxi. Can any clearer
proof than this be desired of the constant and universal acknowledgment
of the divine authority of the Pentateuch throughout the entire nation
of the Jews, notwithstanding the idolatries and corruptions which so
often prevented its receiving such obedience as that acknowledgment
ought to have produced? The argument from this certain antiquity of the
Pentateuch, a copy of which existed in the old Samaritan character as
well as in the modern Hebrew, is most conclusive as to the numerous
prophecies of Christ, and the future and present condition of the Jews
which it contains. These are proved to have been delivered many ages
before they were accomplished; they could be only the result of divine
prescience, and the uttering of them by Moses proves therefore the
inspiration and the authority of his writings. See LAW and MOSES.
ϖέντε, _five_, and τεῦχος, _a volume_, signifies the collection of the
five books of Moses, which are Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and
Deuteronomy. That the Jews have acknowledged the authenticity of the
Pentateuch, from the present time back to the era of their return from
the Babylonish captivity, a period of more than two thousand three
hundred years, admits not a possibility of doubt. The five books of
Moses have been during that period constantly placed at the head of the
Jewish sacred volume, and divided into fixed portions, one of which was
read and explained in their synagogues, not only every Sabbath with the
other Scriptures, but in many places twice a week, and not unfrequently
every evening, when they alone were read. They have been received as
divinely inspired by every Jewish sect, even by the Sadducees, who
questioned the divinity of the remaining works of the Old Testament. In
truth, the veneration of the Jews for their Scriptures, and above all
for the Pentateuch, seems to have risen almost to a superstitious
reverence. Extracts from the Mosaic law were written on pieces of
parchment, and placed on the borders of their garments, or round their
wrists and foreheads: nay, they at a later period counted, with the
minutest exactness, not only the chapters and paragraphs, but the words
and letters, which each book of their Scriptures contains. Thus also the
translation, first of the Pentateuch, and afterward of the remaining
works of the Old Testament, into Greek, for the use of the Alexandrian
Jews, disseminated this sacred volume over a great part of the civilized
world, in the language most universally understood, and rendered it
accessible to the learned and inquisitive in every country; so as to
preclude all suspicion that it could be materially altered by either
Jews or Christians, to support their respective opinions as to the
person and character of the Messiah; the substance of the text being, by
this translation, fixed and authenticated at least two hundred and
seventy years before the appearance of our Lord.
But, long previous to the captivity, two particular examples, deserving
peculiar attention, occur in the Jewish history, of the public and
solemn homage paid to the sacredness of the Mosaic law as promulgated in
the Pentateuch; and which, by consequence, afford the fullest testimony
to the authenticity of the Pentateuch itself: the one in the reign of
Hezekiah, while the separate kingdoms of Judah and Israel still
subsisted; and the other in the reign of his great grandson Josiah,
subsequent to the captivity of Israel. In the former we see the pious
monarch of Judah assembling the priests and Levites and the rulers of
the people; to deplore with him the trespasses of their fathers against
the divine law, to acknowledge the justice of those chastisements which,
according to the prophetic warnings of that law, had been inflicted upon
them; to open the house of God which his father had impiously shut, and
restore the true worship therein according to the Mosaic ritual, 2 Kings
xviii; 2 Chron. xxix; xxx; with the minutest particulars of which he
complied, in the sin-offerings and the peace-offerings which, in
conjunction with his people, he offered for the kingdom and the
sanctuary and the people, to make atonement to God for them and for all
Israel; restoring the service of God as it had been performed in the
purest times. And Hezekiah,” says the sacred narrative, rejoiced, and
all the people, that God had prepared the people; for the thing was done
suddenly,” 2 Chron. xxix, 36; immediately on the king’s accession to the
throne, on the first declaration of his pious resolution. How clear a
proof does this exhibit of the previous existence and clearly
acknowledged authority of those laws which the Pentateuch contains!
But a yet more remarkable part of this transaction still remains. At
this time Hoshea was king of Israel, and so far disposed to countenance
the worship of the true God, that he appears to have made no opposition
to the pious zeal of Hezekiah; who, with the concurrence of the whole
congregation which he had assembled, sent out letters and made a
proclamation, not only to his own people of Judah, 2 Chron. xxx, 1, but
to Ephraim and Manasseh and all Israel, from Beersheba even unto Dan,
that they should come to the house of the Lord at Jerusalem, to keep the
passover unto the Lord God of Israel; saying, Ye children of Israel,
turn again to the Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and he will
return to the remnant of you who are escaped out of the hands of the
kings of Assyria; and be not ye like your fathers and your brethren,
which trespassed against the Lord God of their fathers, who therefore
gave them up to desolation as ye see. Now be ye not stiff-necked, as
your fathers were; but yield yourselves unto the Lord, and enter into
his sanctuary which he hath sanctified for ever, and serve the Lord your
God, that the fierceness of his wrath may turn away from you. So the
posts passed from city to city through the country of Ephraim and
Manasseh even unto Zebulun,” 2 Chron. xxx, 6, &c.
Now, can we conceive that such an attempt as this could have been made,
if the Pentateuch containing the Mosaic code had not been as certainly
recognized through the ten tribes of Israel as in the kingdom of Judah?
The success was exactly such as we might reasonably expect if it were so
acknowledged; for, though many of the ten tribes laughed to scorn and
mocked the messengers of Hezekiah, who invited them to the solemnity of
the passover, from the impious contempt which through long disuse they
had conceived for it; Nevertheless,” says the sacred narrative, divers
of Asher and Manasseh and of Zebulun humbled themselves and came to
Jerusalem; and there assembled at Jerusalem much people, to keep the
feast of unleavened bread in the second month, a very great
congregation; and they killed the passover, and the priests and Levites
stood in their places after their manner, according to the law of Moses,
the man of God. So there was great joy in Jerusalem; for since the time
of Solomon, the son of David, king of Israel, there was not the like at
Jerusalem: and when all this was finished, all Israel that were present
went out to the cities of Judah, and brake the images in pieces, and cut
down the groves, and threw down the high places and the altars out of
all Judah and Benjamin, in Ephraim also and Manasseh, until they had
utterly destroyed them all,” 2 Chronicles xxx, 11; xxxi. Can any clearer
proof than this be desired of the constant and universal acknowledgment
of the divine authority of the Pentateuch throughout the entire nation
of the Jews, notwithstanding the idolatries and corruptions which so
often prevented its receiving such obedience as that acknowledgment
ought to have produced? The argument from this certain antiquity of the
Pentateuch, a copy of which existed in the old Samaritan character as
well as in the modern Hebrew, is most conclusive as to the numerous
prophecies of Christ, and the future and present condition of the Jews
which it contains. These are proved to have been delivered many ages
before they were accomplished; they could be only the result of divine
prescience, and the uttering of them by Moses proves therefore the
inspiration and the authority of his writings. See LAW and MOSES.