BOOK OF THE COVENANT. The name of several documents referred to in the Old Testament. (1) We read : " And Moses came and told the people all the words of Jehovah, and all the judgments : and al] the people answered with one voice and said, All the words which Jehovah bath spoken will we do. And Moses wrote all the words of Jehovah, and rose up early in the morning, and builded an altar under the mount, and twelve pillars, according to the twelve tribes of Israel. . . . And he took the book of the covenant, and read in the audience of the people : and they said, All that Jehovah hath spoken will we do, and be obedient " (Exodus xxiv. 3, 4, 7). The document intended here is no doubt the section of the Hexateuch comprised in Exodus xx. 22-xxiii. 33, which is also known to scholars as the code of the covenant or the Greater Book of the Covenant (to distinguish it from No. 2 following). The code is part of the Ephraimitic narrative incorporated in the Hexateuch (see PF,NTATEITCH). " It contains several pentacles of Words, a number of detached statutes, a few laws of a mixed type (probably red actional); but the main body of the code is made up of a series of pentades of judgments, which seem to be judicial decisions of cases arising in an agricultural com munity. These are not such as would arise among the nomads whom Moses led out of Egypt to Horeb " (C. A. Briggs). G. Wildeboer (Canon of the O.T., 1595) points out that we have no certain knowledge about the promul gation of this book, and that since Deuteronomy, though often following its prescriptions closely, never mentions it, it must have had a private character. He adds that It could not have been a book for the people like Deuteronomy, but must have been a book for legal use. (2) In another passage we read : " And Jehovah said unto Moses, Write thou these words: for after the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with thee and with Israel " (Exodus xxxiv. 27). Here a " Book of the Covenant " is not actually mentioned, but is implied. It evidently consists of the preceding section, Exodus xxxiv. 11-28, the work of the Judaic writer. To dis
tinguish it from book no. 1 (above), it has been desig nated by scholars the Little Book of the Covenant. It really represents another decalogue in addition to that of Exodus xx. 1-17 (see DECALOGIJE). (3) Another book is referred to in II. King's and II. Chronicles xxxiv.-v. It is first spoken of as the book of the law " (II. Kings xxii. 8, 11; II. Chronicles xxxiv. 15) or " the book of the law of Jehovah " (II. Chronicles xxxiv. 14) or simply " the words of the law " (II. Chronicles xxxiv. 19), and then as the " book of the covenant " (II. Kings xxiii. 2, 21; II. Chronicles xxxiv. 30) or " the law of Moses " (II. Kings xxiii. 25) or " the word of Jehovah by the band of Moses " (II. Chronicles xxxv. 6). This " book of the covenant " is the book which was brought to light and introduced to the people iu the eighteenth year of King Josiah (621 B.C.). It used to be thought that it was identical with the whole of our Pentateuch or of the Jewish " Torah." That view is no longer held by critical scholars. It has been demonstrated that " the Book of the Covenant," other wise called " the Book of the Law," comprised " either a portion of our Deuteronomy or a collection of laws, Deuteronomic in tone, and, in range of contents, having a close resemblance to our Book of Deuteronomy " (H. E. Ryle). There are two lines of evidence. (1) It is clear from the description of the book that " in its most characteristic features, it approximated more closely to portions of Deuteronomy than to any other section of the Pentateuch." (2) When the historian speaks of "the law," he appears " to have in view the Deutemnomic section, and scarcely to be acquainted with any other." The arguments are summarized very lucidly by H. E. Ryle. The public recognition and acceptance of this deuteronomic work marks the beginning of the process of canonization. See H. E. Ryle, Canon; W. R. Smith, O.T.J.C. (2); C. A. Briggs, Hex.