Excerpt from The Literature of the Old Testament in Its Historical Development The plan of this volume needs a word of explanation. It was originally intended to publish translations of the most important texts of the Old Testament, grouped topically and edited in such a way as to show both their relation to each other and to that process of development into the work as a Whole by which they found their place in the collection. Considerable progress had been made along these lines when the war interrupted the preparation of the series. After it was over, publishing conditions still presented sufiieient difficulties to compel a modification in the original plan, since that would have involved reprinting large parts of the Old Testament which, with but slight textual yariants, would be already accessible to any reader. It was therefore decided to shorten the quoted text to such an extent that it could be readily printed in the midst of the editorial comment, instead of as a body of documents by itself. Where necessary, the larger sections are summarized, and their significance is thus brought out at the same time. The book is obviously not any longer self-sufiicing; it is a companion to the study of the Old Testament, rather than a repository of its texts. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.