ook of Deuteronomy was written on
a separate roll ("in a book," Deut. 31:24). But if this book, when
finished, was laid up with the earlier portions of the law at the side
of the ark, so as to constitute with them a single collection, and if,
as we may reasonably suppose, Moses, in writing the book of Deuteronomy,
contemplated such a collection of all the parts of the law into one
whole; then, when the law is mentioned, whether in Deuteronomy or in the
later books, we are to understand the whole law, unless there be
something in the context to limit its meaning, as there is, for example,
in Joshua 8:32 compared with Deut. 27:1-8. The command to "read this law
before all Israel in their hearing," "at the end of every seven years,
in the solemnity of the year of release, in the feast of tabernacles,"
was understood in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah of the whole law, and
not of Deuteronomy alone (Ch. 9, No. 4); and so Josephus plainly
understood it: "But when the multitude is assembled in the holy city at
the septennial sacrifices on the occasion of the feast of tabernacles,
let the high priest, standing on a lofty stage whence he can be plainly
heard, read the laws to all." Antiq. 4.8, 12. "The laws," in the usage
of Josephus, naturally mean the whole collection of laws.

II. THE HISTORICAL BOOKS.

4. The history of these is involved in obscurity. In respect to most of
them we know not the authors, nor the exact date of their composition.
There are, however, two notices that shed much light on the general
history of the earlier historical books. In the last chapter of the book
of Joshua, after an account of the renewal of the covenant at Shechem,
it is added: "And Joshua wrote these words in the book of the law of
God, and took a great stone, and set it up there under an oak that was
by the sanctuary of the Lord." Josh. 24:26. Again, upon the occasion of
the establishment of the kingdom under Saul, we are told that "Samuel
told the people the manner of the kingdom, and wrote it in a book, and
laid it up before the Lord." 1 Sam. 10:25. From the first of these
passages we learn that a theocratic man after Moses, who had the spirit
of prophecy, connected his writings (or at least one portion of them)
with the law. This addition by Joshua, though never formally regarded as
a part of the law, virtually belonged to it, since it contained a
renewal of the covenant between God and his people. From the second
passage we learn th