Moreover, combined with this assumed personal knowledge on the part of the people there is a clear indication of _personal authority_ on the part of the writer. The later prophets always speak in God's name, and such expressions as _Thus saith the Lord, Hear ye the word of the Lord_, are extremely common, occurring altogether over 800 times. But in the laws of the Pentateuch nothing of the kind is found. They are delivered by Moses in his own name, often with the simple words, _I command thee_, which occur thirty times in Deuteronomy. And, of course, if the laws are genuine, there is nothing surprising in this, as Moses had been the great leader of the people, for forty years; but a late author would scarcely have adopted a style so different from that of all the other prophets. (3.) _Their wording._ Lastly we must consider the _wording_ of the laws; and this also is strongly in favour of a contemporary origin. Thus, as many as sixteen of them, which have special reference to Canaan, begin with some such phrase as _when ye be come into the land of Canaan_,[62] which plainly supposes that the people were not there already. And the same may be said of numerous other laws, which the people are told to obey when they enter into Canaan; or are even urged to obey in order that they may enter in, both of which again, imply that they were not there already.[63] While several of the laws refer to the _camp_, and sometimes to _tents_, in such a way as to show that when they were written, the people were still living in a camp.[64] [Footnote 62: Exod. 12. 25; 13. 11; Lev. 14. 34; 19. 23; 23. 10; 25. 2; Num. 15. 2, 18; 35. 10; Deut. 7. 1; 12. 1, 10, 29; 17. 14; 18. 9; 26. 1.] [Footnote 63: _E.g._, Deut. 4. 1, 5, 14; 5. 31; 6. 1, 18; 8. 1.] [Footnote 64: _E.g._, Exod. 29. 14; Lev. 4. 12; 6. 11; 13. 46; 14. 3; 16. 26; 17. 3; Num. 5. 2; 19. 3, 14.] The wording, then, of all these laws bears unmistakable signs of contemporary origin. Of course, these signs may have been inserted in later laws to give them an air of genuineness, but they cannot be explained in any other way. Therefore the laws must be either of _contemporary date_, or else _deliberate frauds_. No innocent mistake in ascribing old laws to Moses, can possibly explain such language as this; either it was the natural result of the laws being genuine, or else it was adopted on purpose to mislead. Nor can the difficulty be got over by introducing a number of compilers and editors. For each individual law, if it falsely _claims_ to date from before the conquest of Canaan (and, as we have seen, numbers and numbers of laws do so claim, _When ye be come into the land of Canaan_, etc.), must have been made by _someone_. And this someone, though he really wrote it after the conquest of Canaan, must have inserted these words to make it appear that it was written before.