Issachar, Zebulon, Benjamin, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher.  And all the souls that came out of Jacob’s loins were seventy souls; and Joseph was in Egypt.  And the children of Israel were fruitful and increased abundantly, and the land was filled with them, and the Egyptians made the children of Israel their servants with rigour, in all their work which they wrought by them with rigour, and they made their lives bitter with hard bondage (Exodus i. 1-7, 13, 14).  And the children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage; and they cried, and their cry because of the bondage came up unto God, and God heard their groaning, and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob, and God took notice (ii. 23-25).  And God spake unto Moses, and said unto him, I am Jehovah.  I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob by the name of El Shaddai; but by my name Jehovah was I not known unto them; and I made a covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, the land of their pilgrimage, wherein they were strangers.  And I have heard the groaning of the children of Israel, that the Egyptians keep them in bondage, and I have remembered my covenant” (vi. 2 seq.).

That is the whole of it.  As a rule nothing more is aimed at than to give the mere links and articulations of the narrative.  It is as if Q were the scarlet thread on which the pearls of JE are hung.  In place of the somewhat loose connections of the Jehovist, the narrative of the Priestly Code shows a firmly jointed literary form; one remarkable feature of which is to be seen in the regular titles which stand at the head of the various sections.  Each section begins with the words )LH TWLDWT (hae sunt generationes), from which Genesis derives its name. l

**************************************** 1 *)AUTH (H BIBLOS GENESEWS ii. 4 LXX.  Hence Ewald’s name for the Priestly Code, which is very appropriate for Genesis, or perhaps generally for the book of the four covenants—­the Book of Origins. *****************************************

In the rest of the historical literature of the Old Testament nothing like this as yet appears.  It is also characteristic that whenever the title occurs, introducing a new, section, the contents of the preceding section are first of all briefly recapitulated so as to show the place of the link upon the chain.

The Priestly Code enters as little as possible on the contents of the various narratives.  The predicates are stripped off, so far as they admit of such treatment, and the subjects duly entered in a catalogue with connecting text.  In this way the history almost shrinks to the compass of a genealogy with explanations—­ the genealogy at least forms the principal contents of the history, and here appears in such proportions and such systematic fashion as nowhere else.  This has been regarded as a proof that Q belongs to an older stage of development of Hebrew historiography than JE.  There can be no doubt, it is said, 1 that the oldest Hebrew,