Theology

of

The Old Testament

by

Dr. Gustav Friedrich Oehler,

late professor ordinarius of theology, and ephorus of the evangelical theological seminary in tübingen

A Revision of the Translation in Clark’s Foreign Theological Library with the Additions of the Second German Edition, An Introduction and Notes,

By

George E. Day,

professor of the hebrew language and literature and biblical theology in yale college

Ninth Edition

Funk & Wagnalls Company

New York and London

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1883,

By FUNK & WAGNALLS,

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C.

Introduction

By The American Editor

The singular helpfulness of Oehler’s Theology of the Old Testament to ministers of the Gospel and other biblical students, who have made themselves acquainted with its contents, either in the original or through the Edinburgh translation, is due to its subject, the wide range of thought which it opens, the thoroughness with which the several topics are examined and discussed, and the positive and in general satisfactory results to which the author arrives.

Of the subject—the supernatural character and gradual progress of revelation as exhibited in the Old Testament—a subject now so prominent in the face of the sceptical denials of our times, little need be said beyond what is contained in the suggestive and stimulating introduction of the author. No one can read the clear and firm statements in § 7 without being stirred by the wide sweep of thought proposed to be presented. Embracing as it does the whole field of Israelitish history in its connection with the founding of a kingdom of God among men, the kindred subject of the theocratic ordinances and sacred antiquities of the Jews as giving the limited and temporary form in which that kingdom for ages appeared, and finally the form, extent, and limits of the doctrinal truths presented in the Old Testament, it aims to weave the whole into an organic unity of which the final expression is Christ. The thoroughness with which this has been done, and the repeated revisions to which the author subjected his work during the thirty years in which he lectured upon the theology of the Old Testament, are evident not only in the present volume, but in the forty articles contributed by him to Herzog’s Real-Encyklopädie, in which several of the most important subjects in this department of study are more fully discussed.*

The foundation of the whole superstructure was laid by the author in a severe process of critical and exegetical study of the Hebrew Scriptures, the fruits of which appear at every step. It was once said of him that he seemed to be predestined to be an expositor of the Old Testament. His decisions upon the meaning of its most important and difficult passages will bear a comparison, there is no reason to doubt, with the Revised Version of that part of the Bible soon to be issued, as they certainly do with the best results of German biblical learning. So numerous ...