the beasts and the birds, xxv. 4, but most of all to the needy--the
stranger, the Levite, the fatherless and the widow. Again and again
these are commended by definite and practical suggestions to the
generosity of the people, and this generosity is expected to express
itself particularly on occasions of public worship. Religion is felt
to be the basis of morality and of all social order, and therefore,
even in the legislation proper (xii.-xxviii.), to say nothing of the
fine hortatory introduction (v.-xi.), its claims and nature are
presented first. The book abounds in profound and memorable
statements touching the essence of religion. It answers the
question, What doth thy God require of thee? x. 12. It reminds the
people that man lives not by bread alone, viii. 3. It knows that
wealth and success tend to beget indifference to religion, viii.
13ff., and that chastisement, when it comes, is sent in fatherly
love, viii. 5; and it presses home upon the sluggish conscience the
duty of kindness to the down-trodden and destitute, with a sweet and
irresistible reasonableness--"Love the sojourner, for ye were
sojourners in the land of Egypt," x. 19.




JOSHUA


The book of Joshua is the natural complement of the Pentateuch.
Moses is dead, but the people are on the verge of the promised land,
and the story of early Israel would be incomplete, did it not record
the conquest of that land and her establishment upon it. The divine
purpose moves restlessly on, until it is accomplished; so "after the