these definite terms: "Then stood up Joshua, the son of Jozadak, and
his brethren the priests, and Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and his
brethren, and builded the altar of the God of Israel, to offer burnt
offerings thereon, _as it is written in the law of Moses_, the man of
God" (Ezra iii. 2). Was Ezra deceiving the people?

There are several things to be noted here:

1. _There was a written law of Moses_, the man of God, then in
existence. It was not a written law of Ezra which the priests palmed off
as the written law of Moses.

2. _There was a priestly order_, according to the written law of Moses
the man of God, not according to the invention of the exiles returning
from captivity, under the pretense that Moses wrote it.

3. The altar was built according to the written law of Moses the man of
God. These records by Ezra effectually bar the door against the critical
conjecture that the Pentateuch, in which the written law of Moses the
man of God is found, was fabricated after the exile.

The definite law for the place of building the altar, by which the
priests proceeded in the days of Ezra, is recorded by "Moses the man of
God," in Deut. xii. 5-7: "Unto the place which the Lord your God shall
choose out of all your tribes to put his name there, even unto his
habitation shall ye seek, and thither shalt thou come; and thither shall
ye bring your burnt offerings, and your sacrifices and your tithes and
heave offerings of your hand, and your vows, and your freewill
offerings, and the firstlings of your herds, and your flocks; and there
ye shall eat before the Lord your God, and ye shall rejoice in all that
ye put your hand unto, ye and your households, wherein the Lord thy God
hath blessed thee."

It is Ezra, not the critics, who informs us that this was "written in
the law of Moses the man of God." We will be pardoned for accepting the
testimony of Ezra. He does not mean to forsake his faith in the Mosaic
authorship of the Pentateuch, for he writes in chapter vi. 18: "They set
the priests in their divisions, and the Levites in their courses, for
the service of God, which is at Jerusalem; _as it is written in the book
of Moses_."

In the eighth chapter of the book of Nehemiah, that great servant of God
affirms his faith in the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, which was
also the faith of all the people of his time. In the first verse in this
chapter he informs us that "all the people gathered themselves tog