What is the Pentateuch?
Answered from the commentary of Morrish Bible Dictionary, Arend Remmers, Samuel Ridout and 2 others
The Pentateuch is the Greek name for the first five books of the Old Testament, also called the five books of Moses or the Torah. They form a coherent whole and the foundation of the Old Testament, setting out the law and the great principles of God’s dealings with people. Their subjects progress through creation and the patriarchs, redemption, access and holiness, the people’s wilderness journey, and a review of God’s ways with them. The passages consistently describe them as five books of Moses; one passage notes that the account of his death and burial is excepted.
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What the commentators say
The passages the answer is drawn from, the most direct first, with the words that bear on the question marked.
The Greek name given to the first five books of the O.T., which are also called 'the five books of Moses.' The many references to and quotations from them in other parts of the scripture, and allusions to them by Christ under the name of Moses, show plainly that Moses was the inspired writer of them, except of course the small portion that records his death and burial. See MOSES.
The five books of Moses (the Torah), according to an old division, the first of the three parts of the Old Testament (Luke 24: 44).
The five books of Moses (the Torah), according to an old division, the first of the three parts of the Old Testament (Luke 24:44).
The tradition that Moses is the author of the first five books of the Bible originates from the Word of God itself. The title "law" does not only refer to the commandments that Moses received at Sinai from God. Already in the Old Testament it often refers to the whole Pentateuch, the Thora, i.e., the first part of the Old Testament. Compare Joshua 1:7; 8:31; Judges 3:4; 1 Kings 2:3; 2 Chronicles 23:18; Ezra 3:2; Nehemiah 8:1; Daniel 9:11; Malachi 4:4.
We have here in this first table, the Pentateuch, or five books of the Law, written by Moses, which form the foundation and the model upon which all the other books are grouped together. The general theme of this first group, corresponding to its first place, is God's sovereign power and His counsels with regard to His people. Embodied in these five books we have, in germ at least, every principle of divine activity towards men, — election, creation, calling, redemption, communion, holiness, trial, and final glory.
I need not say that the books of the Bible are grouped together in an orderly way, evidently not thrown together haphazardly. Take for instance the Old and New Testaments. You find that they treat of two distinct subjects. We come however to our particular subject tonight, the five books of Moses, the first part of the Bible. They are all held fast together. It is one coherent whole; you could not take one of them away without mutilating this whole portion of scripture. Rob us of Genesis, for instance, and we would be without the very foundation as to God's ways and works in this world. Rob us of Deuteronomy or put it with another part of the Bible and we would be without the conclusion as to God's ways.
Moses was the author of all these books, the single author. At their close we see him laying down his life with his pen in token of a completed work. We shall find as we go on in the study of Scripture, that this Pentateuch as it is called, (which simply means five volumes) gives us the model upon which the whole word of God is written, a key by which we can understand something of His purpose in giving us such a full revelation. I have said that they are one whole that you could not take one of them away without mutilating the rest.
We have however to look at the other side also, which is, that they are entirely distinct one from the other. People might say Why did not Moses write just one book. If he is the author of the whole as he evidently is, why did he write it in five volumes instead of one? Simply to emphasize the fact that here we have a diversity, a divine progress and that God has a lesson to teach us in the fact that there are five books, just as well as in the fact that it is one division of Scripture. Now what is the lesson that is upon the very surface of this? There are five books. The subject of Genesis is creation, and the life of individual saints. When you come to Exodus, you get an entirely new thought. The prominent thing there is redemption, the redemption of a people to be in association with God. Come again to Leviticus and there is a distinct line of truth that underlies the whole book, the truth of access to God, of holiness. Passing into Numbers is like passing into another room. You find an entirely different thought. It is now the pathway of God's people along the wilderness journey, and when Numbers closes and we get to Deuteronomy, it seems to return as it were to the very beginning. There you have God's summary of His ways with the people.
We have gone through, by the goodness of God, the five books of Moses. They have set before us, on the one side, the great principles on which the relations of man with God, and of God with man, in their great elements, are founded, such as redemption, sacrifice, and the like; and on the other, the deliverance of a people set apart for Himself, and the different conditions in which they were placed, whether under grace in the form of promise, under law, or under God's government established over them by the special mediation of Moses.
As has already been noticed, the five books of Moses give us the foundation of the whole Scripture, and the model upon which it has been written. They are, however, different from any other book of the Bible, different entirely from what we have before us tonight, in this respect more particularly, that in them you have chiefly God's thoughts. It is God's salvation in Exodus, for instance; you have God's holiness all through Leviticus; you have scarcely anything of man in the whole book of Leviticus; it is God's mercy even in Numbers, though that is the most human, I might say, of all the books of the Pentateuch; while in Deuteronomy, of course, it is God going over the whole history with them. Now that is number one, the first division; it is the foundation of all, God's thought, in connection with His people, and when they come in, it is in more or less of a minor way.
That in the Pentateuch or Five Books of Moses we have the firm and ample foundation of the O.T. can be disputed by no reader subject to the truth. They are called the Torah or Law, as this is the institution of God given so fully in Exodus and Leviticus, with supplements drawn out by the journeys of Numbers, and the moral rehearsal of Deuteronomy in view of the entrance into the land of Canaan across the Jordan.
Each of the four books, which, besides Genesis constitute the Pentateuch, begins with this little word. It fully establishes the fact that these books form one great record and must have been written by one instrument. Origin- ally the present division of the writings of Moses into five books did not exist. He wrote in a continuous way, which formed one record. The division into five parts, we doubt not, was made under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
Verses
- Genesis 1:1–311In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2And the earth was waste and empty, and darkness was on the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. 3And God said, Let there be light. And there was light. 4And God saw the light that it was good; and God divided between the light and the darkness. 5And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening, and there was morning — the first day. 6And God said, Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it be a division between waters and waters. 7And God made the expanse, and divided between the waters that are under the expanse and the waters that are above the expanse; and it was so. 8And God called the expanse Heavens. And there was evening, and there was morning — a second day. 9And God said, Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together to one place, and let the dry [land] appear. And it was so. 10And God called the dry [land] Earth, and the gathering together of the waters he called Seas. And God saw that it was good. 11And God said, Let the earth cause grass to spring up, herb producing seed, fruit-trees yielding fruit after their kind, the seed of which is in them, on the earth. And it was so. 12And the earth brought forth grass, herb producing seed after its kind, and trees yielding fruit, the seed of which is in them, after their kind. And God saw that it was good. 13And there was evening, and there was morning — a third day. 14And God said, Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens, to divide between the day and the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years; 15and let them be for lights in the expanse of the heavens, to give light on the earth. And it was so. 16And God made the two great lights, the great light to rule the day, and the small light to rule the night, — and the stars. 17And God set them in the expanse of the heavens, to give light on the earth, 18and to rule during the day and during the night, and to divide between the light and the darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19And there was evening, and there was morning — a fourth day. 20And God said, Let the waters swarm with swarms of living souls, and let fowl fly above the earth in the expanse of the heavens. 21And God created the great sea monsters, and every living soul that moves with which the waters swarm, after their kind, and every winged fowl after its kind. And God saw that it was good. 22And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply on the earth. 23And there was evening, and there was morning — a fifth day. 24And God said, Let the earth bring forth living souls after their kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth, after their kind. And it was so. 25And God made the beast of the earth after its kind, and the cattle after their kind, and every creeping thing of the ground after its kind. And God saw that it was good. 26And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the heavens, and over the cattle, and over the whole earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth on the earth. 27And God created Man in his image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. 28And God blessed them; and God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the heavens, and over every animal that moveth on the earth. 29And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb producing seed that is on the whole earth, and every tree in which is the fruit of a tree producing seed it shall be food for you; 30and to every animal of the earth, and to every fowl of the heavens, and to everything that creepeth on the earth, in which is a living soul, every green herb for food. And it was so. 31And God saw everything that he had made, and behold it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning — the sixth day.