BENEDICT DE SPINOZA: Theological-Political Treatise

Pentateuch, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, Samuel, Kings
The thematic structure and design of the histories also show that there
was only one chronicler who had set himself a particular goal. For he
begins by narrating the earliest origins of the Hebrew nation, then in due
order tells on what occasions and at what times Moses issued laws and
made many prophecies. Then he tells how, in accordance with Moses’
predictions, they invaded the promised land (see Deuteronomy 7), and
after they possessed it, abandoned the laws (Deuteronomy 31.16), as a
result of which they su¡ered many ills (ibid. 17). He explains how, subsequently,
they desired to choose Kings (Deuteronomy 17.14), who also
fared well or ill according to their respect for the Laws (Deuteronomy
28.36 and the last verse), until ¢nally he narrates the ruin of the state,
just as Moses had predicted. Other matters that have nothing to do
with supporting the Law, he either simply consigns to silence or else
refers the reader to other historians. All these books therefore collude
to one end: to teach the sayings and edicts of Moses, and illustrate
them by the outcome of events.
[12] These three things, hence, taken together, namely unity of theme
in all these books, their interconnectedness, and their being derivative
works 28 written many centuries after the event, lead us to conclude, as we
said above, that they were all composed by a single historian.Who this was,
I cannot conclusively prove, though I suspect it was Ezra himself. Several
substantial considerations concur to make me think this. The historian
(whom we now know to have been only one man) takes his story down to
the liberation of Jehoiachin, adding that he sat at the table of the king all
‘his’ life 29 (that is, either the life of Jehoiachin or the life of the son of
Nebuchadnezzar, for the sense is completely ambiguous). It follows that no
one before Ezra’s time could have been this historian. But Scripture tells us 127
of no one living at that time other than Ezra (see Ezra 7.10), who set himself
zealously to reseach and explain the Law of God; it also relates that he was a
writer (Ezra 7.6), well-versed in the Law of Moses. Hence, I cannot think
that it was anyone but Ezra who wrote these books.
Ezra not only applied himself zealously to research the law of God, we
see from this testimony, but also to elaborate it; and at Nehemiah 8.8 30 it
is also said that ‘they read the book of the Law of God as it was
expounded and applied their intelligence to it and understood the
28 Apographa.
29 2 Kings 25.27^30.
30 Spinoza’s text gives Nehemiah 8.9.
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