24. "And his [Israel's] king shall be higher than Agag" (Num. xxiv, 7). This refers to Saul's defeat of Agag. "And he [Saul] took Agag the king of the Amalekites alive, and utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword" (1 Sam. xv, 8). The defeat of Agag is placed in 1067 B.C., 384 years after Moses. 25. "The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, ... until Shiloh come" (Gen. xlix, 10). These words are ascribed to Jacob; but they could not have been written before Judah received the sceptre, which was not until David ascended the throne, 396 years after the death of Moses. 26. "And the Canaanite was then in the land" (Gen. xii, 6). When this was written the Canaanite had ceased to be an inhabitant of Palestine. As a remnant of the Canaanites inhabited this country up to the time of David, it could not have been written prior to his time. 27. "The Canaanite and the Perizzite dwelt then in the land" (Gen. xiii, 7). This, like the preceding passage, could not have been written before the time of David. The Perizzites, also, inhabited Palestine for a long period after the conquest. In the time of the Judges "the children of Israel dwelt among the ... Perizzites" (Jud. iii, 5). 28. "The first of the first fruits of thy land thou shalt bring into the house of the Lord thy God" (Ex. xxiii, 19). This was not written before the time of Solomon; for God had no house prior to the erection of the temple, 1004 B.C., 447 years after Moses. When David proposed to build him a house, he forbade it and said: "I have not dwelt in any house since the time that I brought up the children of Israel out of Egypt, even to this day, but have walked in a tent and in a tabernacle" (2 Sam. vii, 6). The tabernacle itself was a tent (Tent of Meeting). During all this time no house was ever used as a sanctuary. 29. "One from among the brethren shalt thou set king over thee.... But he shall not multiply horses to himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt, to the end that he should multiply horses.... Neither shall he multiply wives to himself, that his heart turn not away; neither shall he greatly multiply to himself silver and gold" (Deut. xvii, 15-17). "And Solomon had forty thousand stalls of horses" (1 Kings iv, 26). "And Solomon had horses brought out of Egypt" (x, 28). "And he had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines: and his wives turned away his heart" (xi, 3). "The weight of gold that came to Solomon in one year was six hundred three score and six talents of gold" (x, 14). "And the king made silver to be in Jerusalem as stones" (27). Nothing can be plainer than that this statute in Deuteronomy was written after Solomon's reign. The extravagance and debaucheries of this monarch had greatly impoverished and corrupted the kingdom, and to prevent a recurrence of such excesses this law was enacted.