The commentary on the Book of Deuteronomy, by Prof. S. R. Driver, was the first volume to appear of the "International Critical Commentary" in course of publication by Charles Scribner's Sons, of New York, and T. & T. Clark, of Edinburgh. It is also the most important of the series thus far published, because of its bearing on the criticism of the Pentateuch. It was published in 1895, but I have forborne to read it or to write a notice of it until now, because I intended, on taking hold of it, to give it a thorough study, and the time for this has not appeared to come sooner.

      It is very seldom, I suppose, that any one but the author and the proofreader reads a commentary through and through; but I have read this one carefully from cover to cover, and I expect to do so again and again; for the critical theory of this book is the keystone of the critical arch which spans the whole of the Pentateuch; and no man can know either the strength or the weakness of the latter without testing the merits of what the critics say of this book.

      The volume is a large one to be devoted to so small a book as Deuteronomy. It contains ninety-five pages [206] of introduction and 426 pages of text--521 pages in all. The critical theory of the book is set forth, and, in a measure, defended, in the introduction; but the more elaborate defense is reserved for the main body of the work, and it is to be found in connection with the various passages used for the purpose. The argument is exhaustive, and yet it is condensed. The author wastes no words in attempts at fine writing, but goes right on with the simplest and most direct exposition of his theme. He also maintains an air of candor, and seldom indulges in overconfident assertions. He usually states and discusses dispassionately the objections that have been urged against his views, though in places he fails to notice very obvious objections which happen not to have been brought forward by former writers. Indeed, while he is not afraid to state fairly, and to answer as best he can, the views of opposing critics, he evidently has made no careful search to see what could be said, though it had not been, by an opponent.

      No one who proposes to master the modern critical theory of the Old Testament can afford to avoid the study of this commentary; for though the author has set forth in a very condensed form in his "Introduction to the Critical Study of the Old Testament" the substance of what is here written, in the present volume he has gone into the details of the argument much more elaborately, and the reader finds here plainly set forth much that he in the more condensed form is apt to overlook. I suppose that Professor Driver's reputation as a critic will depend more hereafter on the present than on the former publication, though the reverse is true at present. His Introduction has been more extensively read than his Deuteronomy, and has therefore done more to establish his reputation. [207]

[SEBC 206-207]