"The deep book, no matter how remote the subject, helps us best."

"Reade not to contradict, and confute;

Nor to believe and take for granted;

Nor to find talk and discourse;
But to weigh and consider."

EMERSON.

BACON.

"Books are not absolutely dead things, but doe contain a potencie of life in them, to be as active as that soule was whose progeny they are; nay, they do preserve, as in a violl, the purest efficacie and extraction of that living intellect that bred them. As good almost kill a man, as kill a good booke; who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God's image; but he who destroys a good booke, kills reason itself, kills the image of God, as it were in the eye."

MILTON.

CHAPTER XIV.

AN INEXPENSIVE OLD TESTAMENT LIBRARY.

I. OF commentaries there are many things to be said. If one already has correct principles of Biblical interpretation, any commentary is better than none. On the other hand, if a man has not some key to the Bible and its true purpose, a poor commentary is worse than none at all. In any case a good one is better than a poor one. The Bible has been greatly and deeply injured by interpreters who have worked in a slip-shod and uncritical manner. This is true, not only of commentators, but of preachers. Many good sermons are founded upon a false interpretation of an important Scripture text. Such blunders as this occur alarmingly often, and there is little or no excuse for them. Good books on Biblical subjects are many and cheap. Furthermore, the Bible can be made an authority for everything that is good, by taking texts in their real meaning, by using them without addition or subtraction, without exaggeration or equivocation. If the Church, or any branch of the Church, uses a text in any other than its true meaning, the world will some day find it out to our shame. It is especially necessary that the "progressive" minister be fair and up to date in his exegesis, for the eyes of all are upon him, and, secondly, the evidences of the general truthfulness of his positions are multiplying so rapidly that he does

not need to add to, or take from.

He can be fair, he

can insist upon our adopting the natural meaning of texts, and be sure that the truths that he loves will triumph at last.

The Bible has been injured by preachers who have misinterpreted it; it has been injured by commentators, who have purposely and confessedly ignored important facts bearing upon the interpretation of books and parts of books. I have before me a commentary in two volumes on Exodus, in which the author professes to ignore everything bearing upon the history and the archæology of the period. And, of course, a man who ignores testimony from these sources may formulate any conceivable theory as to the date and authorship of the book. He may, if he ignore history, defend the most plenary form of inspiration without in the least being conscious that he is defending a lie. Suppose one wrote thus of Daniel, how easy it would be to defend this book as historical. But to one who has a smattering of Babylonian history, there are things to be considered that will at least carry us as far as to doubt whether the book is to be accepted as history, to doubt whether it is worth while for a Christian to spend the time to defend its miracles. The book of Daniel mentions a Babylonian captivity in the third year of Jehoiachim. History knows nothing of this. Yet we have a full record of Nebuchadnezzar's campaigns. Daniel mentions a long period of insanity that overtook Nebuchadnezzar. Yet, strangely enough, royal records bearing his name and containing rational words have come down to us from every year of his reign.1

1 Driver (Introduction) thinks, however, that the Book of Daniel may, after all, be right on this point.

Lastly, we know all the Babylonian kings, and there is no Belshazzar among them. These and other discrepancies are altogether too patent to be ignored. Another thing to be considered is the fact that the Book of Daniel gives us an accurate history of a period four hundred years subsequent to the reputed age of Daniel. Similar things may be said of many Old Testament books. They are not always things that would lead us to change our minds as to the moral and religious value of them; but they are things that we need to know, if we would have an intelligent idea of what a book really was intended to teach.

It would seem, therefore, that every minister should have in his library a trustworthy set of Bible commentaries. There is too little recognition of the importance of this. The clergymen of the age, and especially the more progressive ones, are too prone to neglect this class of literature, and go elsewhere for sermon material. I fear this is a mistake. Some of the very best ministers have, as a consequence, fallen into a slovenly exegesis. It is not because they are adverse to the better views, but because the subject is distasteful. They have simply neglected to keep themselves informed.

2. The list of Old Testament commentaries that is added below is not by any means complete. Neither, perhaps, have I always chosen the best to be had; yet so far as I know them, they are good, and some of them, I am sure, are the best. Some Old Testament books are as yet without an English commentary that can be recommended.

GENESIS. Delitzsch, new, 2 vols., good.

GENESIS, EXODUS, LEVITICUS, NUMBERS. M. M. Kalisch, good and expensive.

JOSHUA, JUDGES, RUTH. Keil, fair.

SAMUEL. Kirkpatrick, in Cambridge Bible for Schools, fair. EZRA, NEHEMIAH. Ryle, Cam. Bible, excellent.

JOB. Davidson, Cam. Bible, excellent.

JOB. Genung, Epic of the Inner Life, excellent.

PSALMS. Cheyne, excellent.

PSALMS. Delitzsch, new, good.

PROVERBS. Delitzsch, fair.

ECCLESIASTES. Plumptre, Cam. Bible, excellent.

ISAIAH. Cheyne, excellent.

ISAIAH. Delitzsch, new, good.

JEREMIAH. Orelli, good.

JEREMIAH. Stearne, Cam. Bible, fair.

EZEKIEL.

Davidson, Cam. Bible, excellent.

DANIEL. A. A. Bevan, excellent.

HOSEA. Cheyne, Cam. Bible, fair.

MICAH. Cheyne, Cam. Bible, fair.

HAGGAI, ZECHARIAH, MALACHI. Perowne, Cam. Bible, fair.

Other numbers of the Cambridge Bible that will be excellent are Exodus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy by Ginsburg, and Isaiah by Robertson Smith. As to the books omitted from this list it will be best, perhaps, on the whole, to wait for something better than has yet appeared, nor is it probable that we shall have long to wait. By no means buy sets of commentaries straight. There are volumes in the Cambridge Bible and in Ellicott that are not worth the paper they are written

on.

3. While it is the office of the commentary to give an introduction to each book treated, it is certainly worth while to own for reference, if not for study, a book like Driver's Introduction, and this should be