Deuteronomy and the Book of Jeremiah first agree with the Priestly Code in certain important expressions.  In Ezekiel such expressions are much more numerous, and the agreement is by no means with Leviticus xvii.-xxvi. alone. 1

****************************************** I Especially noticeable is P)T NGB TYMNH in Ezekiel and the Priestly Code.  In the latter Negeb, even when it refers to the actual Negeb, yet is used as denoting south (Numbers xxxiv. 3, xxv. 2-4), i.e., it has completely lost its original meaning. ******************************************

In the subsequent post-exilic prophets down to Malachi the points of contact are limited to details, but do not cease to occur; they occur also in the Psalms and in Ecclesiastes.  Reminiscences of the Priestly Code are found nowhere but in the Chronicles and some of the Psalms.  For that Amos iv. 11 is borrowed from Genesis xix. 29 is not a whit more clear than that the original of Amos i. 2 must be sought in Joel iv. 19 [iii. 16].

The Priestly Code maintains its isolated literary character as against the later literature also.  This is the result partly of the use of a number of technical terms, partly of the incessant repetition of the same formulae, and of its great poverty of language.  But if we neglect what is due to the stiff and hard idiosyncrasy of the author, it is undoubtedly the case that he makes use of a whole series of characteristic expressions which are not found before the exile, but gradually emerge and come into use after it.  The fact is not even denied, it is merely put aside.  To show what weight is due to it we may find room here for a short statement of the interesting points for the history of language to be found in Genesis i.

Genesis i. 1, R)#YT means in the older Hebrew, not the COMMENCEMENT of a process which goes forward in time, but the FIRST (and generally the BEST) part of a thing.  In the sense of a beginning in time, as the contrary to )XRYT, it is first found in a passage of Deuteronomy, xi. 12; then in the titles in the Book of Jeremiah, xxvi. 1, xxvii. 1, xxviii. 1, xlix. 34, and in Isaiah xlvi. 10, and lastly in the Hagiographa, Job viii. 7, xili. 12; Proverbs xvii. 14; Ecclesiastes vii. 8.  In Genesis x. 10 R)#YT MMLKTW has a different meaning from that in Jeremiah xxvi. 1 in the one it is the principal part of the kingdom; in the other it is the beginning of the reign. In the beginning was in the early time, if absolute, BFR)#NH, BATTXLH; if relative, BTXLT TXLT. 1

******************************************* 1 The vocalisation B:R#YT is very curious:  we should expect BFRA$YT.  It has been attempted to do justice to it by translating:  “In the beginning, when God created heaven and earth—­but the earth was without form and void, and darkness lay upon the deep, and the spirit of God brooded over the water—­then God spake:  Let there be light.”  But this translation is desperate, and certainly not that followed by the punctuators, for the Jewish tradition (Septuagint, Aquila, Onkelos) is unanimous in translating:  “In the beginning God created heaven and earth.”  In Aramaic, on the contrary, such adverbs take, as is well known, the form of the status constructus.  Cf.  RBT Psalm lxvv. 10, cxx. 6. ********************************************