It is generally supposed that Ezra himself wrote the books of Chronicles.  They were certainly composed about his time.  To admit, as all do, that in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah the law of Moses means the Pentateuch as a whole, and to deny that it has the same meaning in the books of Chronicles, is very inconsistent.  Certainly the book which Ezra set forth was the book which he found ready at hand, and therefore the book referred to in the Chronicles, and the Kings also.  Any explanatory additions which he may have made did not affect its substance.  It remains for the objector to show why it was not, in all essential respects, the book which Hilkiah found in the temple, 2 Chron. 34:14, and to which David referred in his dying charge to Solomon, 1 Kings 2:3.

6.  Passing by, for the present, the notices of the law of Moses contained in the book of Joshua, we come to the testimony of the book of Deuteronomy.  We have seen that the Mosaic authorship of the book, as a part of the Pentateuch, is everywhere assumed by the writers of the New Testament.  But, in addition to this, they make quotations from it under the forms, “Moses wrote,” “Moses truly said unto the fathers,” etc.  Mark 10:3-5; Acts 3:22; Rom. 10:19.  If we examine the book itself, its own testimony is equally explicit.  In chap. 17:24 Moses directs that when the Israelites shall appoint a king, “he shall write him a copy of this law in a book out of that which is before the priests the Levites.”  In the opinion of some, this language refers to the whole law of Moses, while others would restrict it to the book of Deuteronomy; but all are agreed that it includes the whole of the latter work, with the exception of the closing sections.  By a comparison of this passage with chaps. 28:58; 31:9, 24-26, the evidence is complete that Moses wrote this law, and delivered it to the priests, to be laid up by the side of the ark in the tabernacle.  If this testimony needed any corroboration, we should have it in the character of the work itself.  It is the solemn farewell of the aged lawgiver to the people whose leader he had been for the space of forty years.  In perfect harmony with this are the grandeur and dignity of its style, its hortatory character, and the exquisite tenderness and pathos that pervade every part of it.  It is every way worthy of Moses; nor can we conceive of any other Hebrew who was in a position to write such a book.

7.  The book of Deuteronomy contains a renewal of the covenant which God made with the children of Israel at Sinai.  Chap. 29:10-15.  Moses himself distinguishes between the former and the latter covenant.  “These are the words of the covenant which the Lord commanded Moses to make with the children of Israel in the land of Moab, besides the covenant which he made with them in Horeb.”  Chap. 29:1.  With each covenant was connected a series of laws; those belonging to the latter being mainly, but not entirely, a repetition of laws given with the first