Gather the people together, men, and women, and children, and thy stranger that is within thy gates, that they may hear, and that they may learn, and fear the Lord your God, and observe to do all the words of this law:  and that their children which have not known anything, may hear, and learn to fear the Lord your God, as long as ye live in the land whither ye go over Jordan to possess it:”  “and it came to pass, when Moses had made an end of writing the words of this law in a book, until they were finished, that Moses commanded the Levites, which bare the ark of the covenant of the Lord, saying, Take this book of the law, and put it in the side” (that is, not within, but by the side.  Compare Josh. 12:9; Ruth 2:14; 1 Sam. 20:25; Psa. 91:7; where the same word is used in the original) “of the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, that it may be there for a witness against thee;” “and it shall be when he”—­the king whom the Israelites in some future age shall set over themselves—­“sitteth upon the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write him a copy of this law in a book out of that which is before the priests the Levites:  and it shall be with him, and he shall read therein all the days of his life; that he may learn to fear the Lord his God, to keep all the words of this law and the statutes, to do them.”  These passages are of the weightiest import; for they teach us how the nucleus of the canon of the Old Testament was formed, and give us all the particulars that enter into the idea of a canonical writing.  It is given by God as an authoritative rule of faith and practice; it is committed to the custody of his people through their recognized officers, and that for all future time; it is to be published to the people at large, and diligently studied by the rulers, that they and the people together may know and do the will of God.  It is not necessary to decide the question how much is included in the words “this book of the law,” Deut. 31:26, whether the whole Pentateuch, or only the book of Deuteronomy.  The arguments to show that the four preceding books came, in all essential respects, from the pen of Moses have been already given (Ch. 9, Nos. 7-9), and need not be here repeated.  We only add that even if the reference is to Deuteronomy alone, as some suppose, the rule for this book would naturally be the rule for all the previous writings.  They also would be laid up by the side of the ark; for it is plain that the priests and Levites, who had charge of the sanctuary, were made the keepers of the sacred writings generally.

As a matter of simple convenience the book of Deuteronomy was written on a separate roll ("in a book,” Deut. 31:24).  But if this book, when finished, was laid up with the earlier portions of the law at the side of the ark, so as to constitute with them a single collection, and if, as we may reasonably suppose, Moses, in writing the book of Deuteronomy, contemplated such a collection of all the parts of