This post was originally written 22 June 2017. To navigate up to the passage index, see index-passages.
Scholars come, and scholars go, but S. R. Driver retains his influence, unto this day. As I read biblical scholars, I continue to see citations to Driver. His work is meticulous, detailed, and although some of his conclusions no longer hold, if you want to understand the Bible at the word and phrase level, his commentaries are a great asset. Right now, you can easily find them online in PDF form, but I’d like to see them in web form. Perhaps some enterprising reader might take up the challenge of getting his stuff onto Wikisource. Perhaps, one day, I will time and projects permitting. For now, here’s some excerpts from Driver’s commentary on Deuteronomy.
I have taken the liberty of leaving out large amounts of technical material, only marking the omissions with ellipses. I’ve also dropped out footnotes, parenthetical citations to other pages and works, and the like. On top of all this, I’ve taken the liberty of expanding some of Driver’s many abbreviations. The internet, as they say, is not paper, so we don’t need to abbreviate to save space. For the reader who wants to go deeper, I recommend reading the commentary in full. The quotes below begin at page lxxvii.
The literary style of Deuteronomy is very marked and individual. In vocabularly, indeed, it presents comparatively few exceptional words; but particular words, and phrases, consisting sometimes of entire clauses, recur with extraordinary frequence, giving a distinctive colouring to every part of the work. In its predominant features, the style of Deuteronomy is strongly original, entirely unlike that of P, and very dissimilar to the normal style of JE. . . .
The paranetic tone of Deuteronomy bears a superficial resemblance to that of the Holiness Code (for example, Leviticus 26); but when the two styles are compared more closely, numerous difficulties at once reveal themselves, that of Deuteronomy presenting affinities with Jeremiah, while the Holiness Code displays affinities with Ezekiel. . . .
. . . Of course a tabulated list of idioms cannot adequately characterize the style of an author; there is an effect produced by the manner in which phrases are combined, and by the structure and rhythm of sentences, which defies tabulation, or even description, and which can only be properly appreciated by repeated perusal of the work in question. Those who have by this course familiarized themselves with the style of the Deuteronomic discourses, will be conscious how greatly it differs from that of any other part of the Pentateuch, — even the parenetic sections of JE, which show a tendency to approach it, not exhibiting the complete Deuteronomic rhythm or expression. The style of Deuteronomy could not have been formed without precedents; and it is probable that these parts of JE (and perhaps other writings not now extant, the style of which was similar) formed the basis upon which the Deuteronomist developed his own literary style, and supplied elements which, in moulding it, he assimilated. . . . It is evident, however, that the original features of his style preponderate decidedly above those that are derived. The strong individuality of the author colours everything that he writes; and even a sentence, borrowed from elsewhere, assumes by the new setting in which it is placed a fresh character, and impresses the reader differently. . . .
In Deuteronomy, a new style of flowing and impressive oratory was introduced into Hebrew literature, by means of which the author strove to move and influence his readers. Hence (quite apart from the matter of his discourse) he differs from the most classical writers of historical narrative, by developing his thought into long and rollings periods, which have the effect of bearing the reader with them, and holding him enthralled by their oratorical power. The beauty and effectiveness of Deuteronomy are indeed chiefly due to the skill with which the author amplifies his thoughts, and casts them into well-balanced clauses, varied individually in expression and form, but all bound together by a sustained rhythmical flow. . . . It is another characteristic of the elevated prose of Deuteronomy, that it not unfrequently uses rare or choice words, not found in ordinary prose. The rhetorical breadth and fulness of the Deuteronomic style, and the copiousness of its diction, are manifest even in a translation. The practical aims of the author, and the parenetic treatment, which as a rule his subject demands, oblige him naturally to expand and reiterate more than is usually the case with Hebrew writers; nevertheless, his discourse, while never (in the bad sense of the term) rhetorical, always maintains its freshness, and is never monotonous or prolix. The oratory of the prophets is frequently more ornate and diversified: in his command of a chaste, yet warm and persuasive eloquence, the author of Deuteronomy stands unique among the writers of the Old Testament.
The linguistic character of Deuteronomy is entirely consistent with the date assigned to it by critics: on the one hand, it contains nothing rugged, or otherwise suggestive of antiquity; on the other hand, it exhibits none of those marks of a deteriorated style which begin to show themselves in Hebrew shortly afterwards. In its broader literary features Deuteronomy resembles closely the prose parts of Jeremiah. . . .
The influence of Deuteronomy is very perceptible in the literature of the Old Testament. Upon its promulgation, it speedily bacame the book which both gave the religious ideal of the age, and moulded the phraseology in which it was expressed. The style of Deuteronomy, when once it had been formed, lent itself readily to adoption; and thus a school of writers, imbued with its spirit, quickly arose, who have stamped their mark upon many parts of the Old Testament.
I am not, and quite likely will never be, qualified to evaluate Driver’s remarks on the tone of Deuteronomy. My ease with biblical Hebrew isn’t there, though it improves in fits and starts. This is a hobby, not my day job.
Yet I do think he is right about the tone of Deuteronomy being distinctive. There is a sense of rolling, oratorical, almost-poetic prose. And it does, in a sense read as sort of a central anchor to the Hebrew Bible.
As I’ve probably said on this book before, I read the Hebrew Bible as basically being organized around one over-arching “history”, if you will. That backbone is the Primary History of nine books, divided into two sets of five, with Deuteronomy as the capstone of the first set and the foundation stone of the second set. Start first with the Pentateuch: Genesis – Exodus – Leviticus – Numbers – Deuteronomy. The first four books are a collection of stories and laws. Genesis is the prologue, and then the next three are about the wilderness wanderings of the Israelites.
At the very end of the wilderness narratives, the book of Deuteronomy sits. Speaking through the literary device of Moses giving his farewell sermon to the people of Israel, it gives in an organized, covenant format a well-written, coherent vision of the relationship between Israel and Yahweh. Where the other books illustrate and legislation, bit by bit, a view of the relationship between Yahweh and Israel, Deuteronomy lays it all out. While in the broader sense all five books “of Moses” can be read as Torah or biblical law, in a sense Deuteronomy is the book of the law. If there is one book that sums up the divine law, this is it.
The second set of five books is Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings. Following the giving of the law, the next four books provide not a disinterested history in the modern scholarly sense, but an application of Deuteronomistic ideology to the story of Israel. Often using language reminiscent of Deuteronomy, these four books illustrate Israel’s successes and (more often) failures in living out the Deuteronomistic vision. Their history is organized around Israel’s response to the Law, and Israel’s experience of the famous blessings and cursings of Deuteronomy.
In two parts, these nine make up what is sometimes called the Primary History or Enneateuch. The other half of the Hebrew Bible can be read as various supplements to the Primary History: retellings, additional stories, epilogues, prophetic discourses on similar topics.
It is easy to imagine a Hebrew Bible without Ben Sira, or the Song of Songs, or even Chronicles. It is difficult to imagine what would be left without Deuteronomy. There would be a sort of disarray.
Maybe I’m exaggerating Deuteronomy’s importance. But I don’t think I am.