legislation, but the explanation is not probable.

Various repetitions of laws occur which are inexplicable on the
supposition that these laws were all written by the hand of one person.
Thus in Exodus xxxiv. 17-26, there is a collection of legal enactments,
all of which can be found, in the same order and almost the same words,
in the twenty-third chapter of the same book. Thus, to quote the summary
of Bleek, we find in both places, (_a_) that all the males shall
appear before Jehovah three times in every year; (_b_) that no
leavened bread shall be used at the killing of the Paschal Lamb, and
that the fat shall be preserved until the next morning; (_c_) that
the first of the fruits of the field shall be brought into the house of
the Lord; (_d_) that the young kid shall not be seethed in its
mother's milk.[Footnote: _Introduction to the Old Testament_, i.
240.]

We cannot imagine that one man, with a fairly good memory, much less an
infallibly inspired man, should have written these laws twice over, in
the same words, within so small a space, in the same legal document. In
Leviticus we have a similar instance. If any one will take that book and
carefully compare the eighteenth with the twentieth chapter, he will see
some reason for doubting that both chapters could have been inserted by
one hand in this collection of statutes. "It is not probable," as Bleek
has said, "that Moses would have written the two chapters one after the
other, and would so shortly after have repeated the same precepts which
he had before given, only not so well arranged the second time."
[Footnote: _Introduction to the Old Testament_, i. 240.]

There are also quite a number of inconsistencies and contradictions in
the legislation, all of which may be easily explained, but not on the