But here a difficult question arises. There is no specific measurement

of the point at which this subdividing veil was to stretch across the

tent. The analogy of the Temple inclines us to believe that the Most

Holy Place was a perfect cube, and the Holy Place twice as long as it

was broad and high. There is evident allusion to this final shape of the

Most Holy Place in the description of the New Jerusalem, of which the

length and breadth and height were equal. And yet there is strong reason

to suspect that this arrangement was not the primitive one. For Moses

was ordered to stretch the veil underneath the golden clasps which bound

together the two great curtains of the tabernacle (ver. 33). But these

were certainly in the middle. How, then, could the veil make an unequal

division below? Possibly fifteen feet square would have been too mean a

space for the dimensions of the Most Holy Place, although the perfect

cube became desirable, when the size was doubled.

A screen of the same rich material, but apparently not embroidered with

cherubim, was to stretch across the door of the tent; but this was

supported on five pillars instead of four, clearly that the central one

might support the ridge-bar of the roof. And their sockets were of brass

(vers. 36, 37).

The tabernacle, like the Temple, had its entrance on the east (ver. 22);

and in the case of the Temple this was the more remarkable, because the

city lay at the other side, and the worshippers had to pass round the

shrine before they reached the front of it. The object was apparently to

catch the warmth of the sun. For a somewhat similar reason, every pagan

temple in the ancient world, with a few well-defined exceptions which

are easily explained, also faced the east; and the worshippers, with

their backs to the dawn, saw the first beams of the sun kindling their

idol's face. The orientation of Christian churches is due to the custom

which made the neophyte, standing at first in his familiar position

westward, renounce the devil and all his works, and then, turning his

back upon his idols, recite the creed with his face eastward.

What ideas would be suggested by this edifice to the worshipper will

better be examined when we have examined also the external court.

CHAPTER XXVII.

_THE OUTER COURT._

xxvii.

Before describing the tabernacle, its furniture was specified. And so,

when giving instructions for the court of the tabernacle, the altar has

to be described: "Thou shalt make the altar of acacia wood." The

definite article either implies that an altar was taken for granted, a

thing of course; or else it points back to chap. xx. 24, which said "An

altar of earth shalt thou make." Nor is the acacia wood of this altar at

all inconsistent with that precept, it being really not an altar but an

altar-case, and "hollow" (ver. 8)--an arrangement for holding the earth

together, and preventing the feet of the priests from desecrating it. At

each corner was a horn, of one piece with the framework, typical of the

power which was there invoked, and practically useful, both to bind the

sacrifice with cords, and also for the grasp of the fugitive, seeking

sanctuary (Ps. cxviii. 27; 1 Kings i. 50). This arrangement is said to

have been peculiar to Judaism. And as the altar was outside the

tabernacle, and both symbolism and art prescribed simpler materials, it

was overlaid with brass (vers. 1, 2). Of the same material were the

vessels necessary for the treatment of the fire and blood (ver. 3). A

network of brass protected the lower part of the altar; and at half the

height a ledge projected, supported by this network, and probably wide

enough to allow the priests to stand upon it when they ministered (vers.

4, 5). Hence we read that Aaron "came down from offering" (Lev. ix. 22).

Lastly, there was the same arrangement of rings and staves to carry it

as for the ark and the table (vers. 6, 7).

It will be noticed that the laver in this court, like the altar of

incense within, is reserved for mention in a later chapter (xxx. 18) as

being a subordinate feature in the arrangements.

The enclosure was a quadrangle of one hundred cubits by fifty; it was

five cubits high, and each cubit may be taken as a foot and a half. The

linen which enclosed it was upheld by pillars with sockets of brass; and

one of the few additional facts to be gleaned from the detailed

statement that all these directions were accurately carried out is that

the heads of all the pillars were overlaid with silver (xxxviii. 17).

The pillars were connected by rods (fillets) of silver, and a hanging of

fine-twined linen was stretched by means of silver hooks (9-13). The

entrance was twenty cubits wide, corresponding accurately to the width,

not of the tabernacle, but of "the tent" as it has been described

(reaching out five cubits farther on each side than the tabernacle), and

it was closed by an embroidered curtain (14-17). This fence was drawn

firmly into position and held there by brazen tent-pins; and we here

incidentally learn that so was the tent itself (19).

[FOR VERSES 20, 21, see page 423.]

We are now in a position to ask what sentiment all these arrangements

would inspire in the mind of the simple and somewhat superstitious

worshippers.

Approaching it from outside, the linen enclosure (being seven feet and a

half high) would conceal everything but the great roof of the tent, one

uniform red, except for the sealskin covering along the summit. A gloomy

and menacing prospect, broken possibly by some gleams, if the curtain of

the gable were drawn back, from the gold with which every portion of the

shrine within was plated.

So does the world outside look askance upon the Church, discerning a

mysterious suggestion everywhere of sternness and awe, yet with flashes

of strange splendour and affluence underneath the gloom.

In this place God is known to be: it is a tent, not really "of the

congregation," but "of meeting" between Jehovah and His people: "the

tent of meeting before the Lord, where I will meet with you, ... and

there I will meet with the children of Israel" (xxix. 42-3). And so the

Israelite, though troubled by sin and fear, is attracted to the gate,

and enters. Right in front stands the altar: this obtrudes itself before

all else upon his attention: he must learn its lesson first of all.

Especially will he feel that this is so if a sacrifice is now to be

offered, since the official must go farther into the court to wash at

the laver, and then return; so that a loss of graduated arrangement has

been accepted in order to force the altar to the front. And he will soon

learn that not only must every approach to the sacred things within be

heralded by sacrifice upon this altar, but the blood of the victim must

be carried as a passport into the shrine. Surely he remembers how the

blood of the lamb saved his own life when the firstborn of Egypt died:

he knows that it is written "The life (or soul) of the flesh is in the

blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for

your souls (or lives): for it is the blood that maketh atonement by

reason of the life (or soul)" (Lev. xvii. 11).

No Hebrew could watch his fellow-sinner lay his hand on a victim's head,

and confess his sin before the blow fell on it, without feeling that sin

was being, in some mysterious sense, "borne" for him. The intricacies of

our modern theology would not disturb him, but this is the sentiment by

which the institutions of the tabernacle assuredly ministered comfort

and hope to him. Strong would be his hope as he remembered that the

service and its solace were not of human devising, that God had "given

it to him upon the altar to make atonement for his soul."

Taking courage, therefore, the worshipper dares to lift up his eyes. And

beyond the altar he sees a vision of dazzling magnificence. The inner

roof, most unlike the sullen red of the exterior, is blazing with

various colours, and embroidered with emblems of the mysterious

creatures of the sky, winged, yet not utterly afar from human in their

suggestiveness. Encompassed and looked down into by these is the

tabernacle, all of gold. If the curtain is raised he sees a chamber

which tells what the earth should be--a place of consecrated energies

and resources, and of sacred illumination, the oil of God burning in the

sevenfold vessel of the Church. Is this blessed place for him, and may

he enter? Ah, no! and surely his heart would grow heavy with

consciousness that reconciliation was not yet made perfect, when he

learned that he must never approach the place where God had promised to

meet with him.

Much less might he penetrate the awful chamber within, the true home of

deity. There, he knows, is the record of the mind of God, the

concentrated expression of what is comparatively easy to obey in act,

but difficult beyond hope to love, to accept and to be conformed to.

That record is therefore at once the revelation of God and the

condemnation of His creature. Yet over this, he knows well, there is

poised no dead image such as were then adored in Babylonian and Egyptian

fanes, but a spiritual Presence, the glory of the invisible God. Nor was

He to be thought of as in solitude, loveless, or else needing human

love: above Him were the woven seraphim of the curtain, and on either

side a seraph of beaten gold--types, it may be, of all the created life

which He inhabits, or else pictures of His sinless creatures of the

upper world. And yet this pure Being, to Whom the companionship of

sinful man is so little needed, is there to meet with man; and is

pleased not to look upon His violated law, but to command that a slab,

inestimably precious, shall interpose between it and its Avenger. By

whom, then, shall this most holy floor be trodden? By the official

representative of him who gazes, and longs, and is excluded. He enters

not without blood, which he is careful to sprinkle upon all the

furniture, but chiefly and seven times upon the mercy-seat.

Thus every worshipper carries away a profound consciousness that he is

utterly unworthy, and yet that his unworthiness has been expiated; that

he is excluded, and yet that his priest, his representative, has been

admitted, and therefore that he may hope. The Holy Ghost did not declare

by sign that no way into the Holiest existed, but only that it was not

yet made manifest. Not yet.

This leads us to think of the priest.

CHAPTER XXVIII

_"THE HOLY GARMENTS."_

xxviii.

The tabernacle being complete, the priesthood has to be provided for.

Its dignity is intimated by the command to Moses to bring his brother

Aaron and his sons near to himself (clearly in rank, because the object

is defined, "that he may minister unto Me"), and also by the direction

to make "holy garments for glory and for beauty." But just as the

furniture is treated before the shrine, and again before the courtyard,

so the vestments are provided before the priesthood is itself discussed.

The holiness of the raiment implies that separation to office can be

expressed by official robes in the Church as well as in the state; and

their glory and beauty show that God, Who has clothed His creation with

splendour and with loveliness, does not dissever religious feeling from

artistic expression.

All that are wise-hearted in such work, being inspired by God as really,

though not as profoundly, as if their task were to foretell the advent

of Messiah, are to unite their labours upon these garments.

The order in the twenty-eighth chapter is perhaps that of their visible

importance. But it will be clearer to describe them in the order in

which they were put on.

Next the flesh all the priests were clad from the loins to the thighs in

close-fitting linen: the indecency of many pagan rituals must be far

from them, and this was a perpetual ordinance, "that they bear not

iniquity and die" (xxviii. 42-3).

Over this was a tight-fitting "coat" (a shirt rather) of fine linen,

white, but woven in a chequered pattern, without seam, like the robe of

Jesus, and bound together with a girdle (39-43).

These garments were common to all the priests; but their "head-tires"

differed from the impressive mitre of the high priest. The rest of the

vestments in this chapter belong to him alone.

Over the "coat" he wore the flowing "robe of the ephod," all blue,

little seen from the waist up, but uncovered thence to the feet, and

surrounded at the hem with golden pomegranates, the emblem of

fruitfulness, and with bells to enable the worshippers outside to follow

the movements of their representative. He should die if this expression

of his vicarious function were neglected (31-35).

Above this robe was the ephod itself--a kind of gorgeous jacket, made in

two pieces which were joined at the shoulders, and bound together at the

waist by a cunningly woven band, which was of the same piece. This

ephod, like the curtains of the tabernacle, was of blue and purple and

scarlet and fine-twined linen; but added to these were threads of gold,

and we read, as if this were a novelty which needed to be explained,

that they beat the gold into thin plates and then cut it into threads

(xxxix. 3, xxviii. 6-8).

Upon the shoulders were two stones, rightly perhaps called onyx, and set

in "ouches"--of filagree work, as the word seems to say. Upon them were

engraven the names of the twelve tribes, the burden of whose sins and

sorrows he should bear into the presence of his God, "for a memorial"

(9-12).

Upon the ephod was the breastplate, fastened to it by rings and chains

of twisted gold, made to fold over into a square, a span in measurement,

and blazing with twelve gems, upon which were engraved, as upon the

onyxes on the shoulders, the names of the twelve tribes. All attempts to

derive edification from the nature of these jewels must be governed by

the commonplace reflection that we cannot identify them; and many of the

present names are incorrect. It is almost certain that neither topaz,

sapphire nor diamond could have been engraved, as these stones were,

with the name of one of the twelve tribes (13-30).

"In the breastplate" (that is, evidently, between the folds as it was

doubled), were placed those mysterious means of ascertaining the will of

God, the Urim and the Thummim, the Lights and the Perfections; but of

their nature, or of the manner in which they became significant, nothing

can be said that is not pure conjecture (30).

Lastly, there was a mitre of white linen, and upon it was laced with

blue cords a gold plate bearing the inscription "HOLY TO JEHOVAH" (36,

37).

No mention is made of shoes or sandals; and both from the commandment to

Moses at the burning bush, and from history, it is certain that the

priests officiated with their feet bare.

The picture thus completed has the clearest ethical significance. There

is modesty, reverence, purity, innocence typified by whiteness, the

grandeur of the office of intercession displayed in the rich colours and

precious jewels by which that whiteness was relieved, sympathy

expressed by the names of the people in the breastplate that heaved with

every throb of his heart, responsibility confessed by the same names

upon the shoulder, where the government was said to press like a load

(Isa. ix. 6); and over all, at once the condition and the explanation of

the rest, upon the seat of intelligence itself, the golden inscription

on the forehead, "Holy to Jehovah."

Such was the import of the raiment of the high priest: let us see how it

agrees with the nature of his office.

_THE PRIESTHOOD._

What, then, are the central ideas connected with the institution of a

priesthood?

Regarding it in the broadest way, and as a purely human institution, we

may trace it back to the eternal conflict in the breast of man between

two mighty tendencies--the thirst for God and the dread of Him, a strong

instinct of approach and a repelling sense of unworthiness.

In every age and climate, man prays. If any curious inquirer into savage

habits can point to the doubtful exception of a tribe seemingly without

a ritual, he will not really show that religion is one with

superstition; for they who are said to have escaped its grasp are never

the most advanced and civilised among their fellows upon that

account,--they are the most savage and debased, they are to humanity

what the only people which has formally renounced God is fast becoming

among the European races.

Certainly history cannot exhibit one community, progressive, energetic

and civilised, which did not feel that more was needful and might be had

than its own resources could supply, and stretch aloft to a Supreme

Being the hands which were so deft to handle the weapon and the tool.

Certainly all experience proves that the foundations of national

greatness are laid in national piety, so that the practical result of

worship, and of the belief that God responds, has not been to dull the

energies of man, but to inspire him with the self-respect befitting a

confidant of deity, and to brace him for labours worthy of one who

draws, from the sense of Divine favour, the hope of an infinite advance.

And yet, side by side with this spiritual gravitation, there has always

been recoil and dread, such as was expressed when Moses hid his face

because he was afraid to look upon God.

Now, it is not this apprehension, taken alone, which proves man to be a

fallen creature: it is the combination of the dread of God with the

desire of Him. Why should we shrink from our supreme Good, except as a

sick man turns away from his natural food? He is in an unnatural and

morbid state of body, and we of soul.

Thus divided between fear and attraction, man has fallen upon the device

of commissioning some one to represent him before God. The priest on

earth has come by the same road with so many other mediators--angel and

demigod, saint and virgin.

At first it has been the secular chief of the family, tribe or nation,

who has seemed least unworthy to negotiate as well with heaven as with

centres of interest upon earth. But by degrees the duty has everywhere

been transferred into professional hands, patriarch and king recoiling,

feeling the inconsistency of his earthly duties with these sacred ones,

finding his hands to be too soiled and his heart too heavily weighted

with sin for the tremendous Presence into which the family or the tribe

would press him. And yet the union of the two functions might be the

ideal; and the sigh of all truly enlightened hearts might be for a

priest sitting upon his throne, a priest after the order of Melchizedek.

But thus it came to pass that an official, a clique, perhaps a family,

was chosen from among men in things pertaining to God, and the

institution of the priesthood was perfected.

Now, this is the very process which is recognised in Scripture; for

these two conflicting forces were altogether sound and right. Man ought

to desire God, for Whom he was created, and Whose voice in the garden

was once so welcome: but also he ought to shrink back from Him, afraid

now, because he is conscious of his own nakedness, because he has eaten

of the forbidden fruit.

Accordingly, as the nation is led out from Egypt, we find that its

intercourse with heaven is at once real and indirect. The leader is

virtually the priest as well, at whose intercession Amalek is vanquished

and the sin of the golden calf is pardoned, who entered the presence of

God and received the law upon their behalf, when they feared to hear His

voice lest they should die, and by whose hand the blood of the covenant

was sprinkled upon the people, when they had sworn to obey all that the

Lord had said (xvii. 11, xxxii. 30, xx. 19, xxiv. 8).

Soon, however, the express command of God provided for an orthodox and

edifying transfer of the priestly function from Moses to his brother

Aaron. Some such division of duties between the secular chief and the

religious priest would no doubt have come, in Israel as elsewhere, as

soon as Moses disappeared; but it might have come after a very different

fashion, associated with heresy and schism. Especially would it have

been demanded why the family of Moses, if the chieftainship must pass

away from it, could not retain the religious leadership. We know how

cogent such a plea would have appeared; for, although the transfer was

made publicly and by his own act, yet no sooner did the nation begin to

split into tribal subdivisions, amid the confused efforts of each to

conquer its own share of the inheritance, than we find the grandson of

Moses securely establishing himself and his posterity in the apostate

and semi-idolatrous worship of Shechem (Judg. xviii. 30, R.V.).

And why should not this illustrious family have been chosen?

Perhaps because it was so illustrious. A priesthood of that great line

might seem to have earned its office, and to claim special access to

God, like the heathen priests, by virtue of some special desert.

Therefore the honour was transferred to the far less eminent line of

Aaron, and that in the very hour when he was lending his help to the

first great apostacy, the type of the many idolatries into which Israel

was yet to fall. So, too, the whole tribe of Levi was in some sense

consecrated, not for its merit, but because, through the sin of its

founder, it lacked a place and share among its brethren, being divided

in Jacob and scattered in Israel by reason of the massacre of Shechem

(Gen. xlix. 7).

Thus the nation, conscious of its failure to enjoy intercourse with

heaven, found an authorised expression for its various and conflicting

emotions. It was not worthy to commune with God, and yet it could not

rest without Him. Therefore a spokesman, a representative, an

ambassador, was given to it. But he was chosen after such a fashion as

to shut out any suspicion that the merit of Levi had prevailed where

that of Israel at large had failed. It was not because Levi executed

vengeance on the idolaters that he was chosen, for the choice was

already made, and made in the person of Aaron, who was so far from

blameless in that offence.

And perhaps this is the distinguishing peculiarity of the Jewish priest

among others: that he was chosen from among his brethren, and simply as

one of them; so that while his office was a proof of their exclusion, it

was also a kind of sacrament of their future admission, because he was

their brother and their envoy, and entered not as outshining but as

representing them, their forerunner for them entering. The almond rod of

Aaron was dry and barren as the rest, until the miraculous power of God

invested it with blossoms and fruit.

Throughout the ritual, the utmost care was taken to inculcate this

double lesson of the ministry. Into the Holy Place, whence the people

were excluded, a whole family could enter. But there was an inner

shrine, whither only the high priest might penetrate, thus reducing the

family to a level with the nation; "the Holy Ghost this signifying, that

the way into the Holy Place hath not yet been made manifest, while as

the first tabernacle (the outer shrine--ver. 6) was yet standing" (Heb.

ix. 8).

Thus the people felt a deeper awe, a broader separation. And yet, when

the sole and only representative who was left to them entered that

"shrine, remote, occult, untrod," they saw that the way was not wholly

barred against human footsteps: the lesson suggested was far from being

that of absolute despair,--it was, as the Epistle to the Hebrews said,

"Not yet." The prophet Zechariah foresaw a time when the bells of the

horses should bear the same consecrating legend that shone upon the

forehead of the priest: HOLY UNTO THE LORD (Zech. xiv. 20).

It is important to observe that the only book of the New Testament in

which the priesthood is discussed dwells quite as largely upon the

difference as upon the likeness between the Aaronic and the Messianic

priest. The latter offered but one Sacrifice for sins, the former

offered for himself before doing so for the people (Heb. x. 12). The

latter was a royal Priest, and of the order of a Canaanite (Heb. vii.

1-4), thus breaking down all the old system at one long-predicted

blow--for if He were on earth He could not so much as be a priest at all

(Heb. viii. 4)--and with it all the old racial monopolies, all class

distinctions, being Himself of a tribe as to which Moses spake nothing

concerning priests (Heb. vii. 14). Every priest standeth, but this

priest hath for ever sat down, and even at the right hand of God (Heb.

x. 11, 12).

In one sense this priesthood belongs to Christ alone. In another sense

it belongs to all who are made one with Him, and therefore a kingly

priesthood unto God. But nowhere in the New Testament is the name by

which He is designated bestowed upon any earthly minister by virtue of

his office. The presbyter is never called _sacerdos_. And perhaps the

heaviest blow ever dealt to popular theology was the misapplying of the

New Testament epithet (elder, presbyter or priest) to designate the

sacerdotal functions of the Old Testament, and those of Christ which

they foreshadowed. It is not the word "priest" that is at fault, but

some other word for the Old Testament official which is lacking, and

cannot now be supplied.

CHAPTER XXIX.

_THE CONSECRATION SERVICES._

xxix.

The priest being now selected, and his raiment so provided as that it

shall speak of his office and its glory, there remains his consecration.

In our day there is a disposition to make light of the formal setting

apart of men and things for sacred uses. If God, we are asked, has

called one to special service, is not that enough? What more can earth

do to commission the chosen of the sky? But the plain answer which we

ought to have the courage to return is that this is not at all enough.

For God Himself had already called Paul and Barnabas when He said to

such folk as Simeon Niger and Lucius of Cyrene and Manaen, "Separate Me

Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them" (Acts xiii.

1-4). And these obscure people not only laid their hands upon the great

apostle, but actually sent him forth. Now, if he was not exempted from

the need of an orderly commission by the marvellous circumstances of his

call, by his apostleship not of man, by the explicit announcement that

he was a chosen vessel to bear the sacred name before kings and peoples,

it is startling to be told of some shallow modern evangelist, who works

for no Church and submits to no discipline, that he can dispense with

the sanction of human ordination because he is so clearly sent of

heaven.

The example of the Old Testament will no doubt be brushed aside as if

the religion which Jesus learned and honoured were a mere human

superstition. Or else it would be natural to ask, Is it because the

offices and functions of Judaism were more formal, more perfunctory than

ours, that a greater spiritual grace went with their appointments than

with the laying on of hands in the Christian Church, a rite so clearly

sanctioned in the New Testament?

It is written of Joshua that Moses was to lay his hands upon him,

because already the Spirit was in him; and of Timothy that he had

unfeigned faith, and that prophecies went before concerning him (Num.

xxvii. 18; 1 Tim. i. 18; 2 Tim. i. 5). But in neither dispensation did

special grace fail to accompany the official separation to sacred

office: Joshua was full of the Spirit of Wisdom, for Moses had laid his

hands upon him; and Timothy was bidden to stir into flame that gift of

God which was in him through the laying on of the Apostle's hands (Deut

xxxiv. 9; 2 Tim. i. 6).

Accordingly there is great stress laid upon the orderly institution of

the priest. And yet, to make it plain that his authority is only "for

his brethren," Moses, the chief of the nation, is to officiate

throughout the ceremony of consecration. He it is who shall offer the

sacrifices upon the altar, and sprinkle the blood, not upon the first

day only, but throughout the ceremonies of the week.

In the first place certain victims must be held in readiness--a bullock

and two rams; and with these must be brought in one basket unleavened

bread, and unleavened cakes made with oil, and unleavened wafers on

which oil is poured. Then, at the door of the tent of the meeting of man

with God, a ceremonial washing must follow, in a laver yet to be

provided. Here the assertion that purity is needed, and that it is not

inherent, is too plain to be dwelt upon.

But such details as the assuming of the existence of a laver, for which

no directions have yet been given (and presently also of the anointing

oil, the composition of which is still untold), deserve notice. They are

much more in the manner of one who is working out a plan, seen already

by his mental vision, but of which only the salient and essential parts

have been as yet stated, than of any priest of the latter days, who

would first have completed his catalogue of the furniture, and only then

have described the ceremonies in which he was accustomed to see all this

apparatus take its appointed place.

What we actually find is quite natural to a creative imagination,

striking out the broad design of the work and its uses first, and then

filling in the outlines. It is not natural at a time when freshness and

inspiration have departed, and squared timber, as we are told, has taken

the place of the living tree.

The priest, when cleansed, was next to be clad in his robes of office,

with the mitre on his head, and upon the mitre the golden plate, with

its inscription, which is here called, as the culminating object in all

his rich array, "the holy crown" (ver. 6).

And then he was to be anointed. Now, the use of oil, in the ceremony of

investiture to office, is peculiar to revealed religion. And whether we

suppose it to refer to the oil in a lamp, invisible, yet the secret

source of all its illuminating power, or to that refreshment and

renovated strength bestowed upon a weary traveller when his head is

anointed with oil, in either case it expresses the grand doctrine of

revealed religion--that no office may be filled in one's own strength,

but that the inspiring help of God is offered, as surely as

responsibilities are imposed. "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me,

because He hath anointed Me."

With these three ceremonies--ablution, robing and anointing--the first

and most personal section of the ritual ended. And now began a course of

sacrifices to God, advancing from the humblest expression of sin, and

appeal to heaven to overlook the unworthiness of its servant, to that

which best exhibited conscious acceptance, enjoyment of privilege,

admission to a feast with God. The bullock was a sin-offering: the word

is literally _sin_, and occurs more than once in the double sense: "let

him offer for his _sin_ which he hath _sinned_ a young bullock ... for a

_sin(-offering)_" (Lev. iv. 3, v. 6, etc.). And this is the explanation

of the verse which has perplexed so many: "He made Him to be sin for us,

Who knew no sin" (2 Cor. v. 21). The doctrine that pardon comes not by a

cheap and painless overlooking of transgression, as a thing indifferent,

but by the transfer of its consequences to a victim divinely chosen,

could not easily find clearer expression than in this word. And it was

surely a sobering experience, and a wholesome one, when Aaron, in his

glorious robes, sparkling with gems, and bearing on his forehead the

legend of his holy calling, laid his hand, beside those of his children

and successors, upon the doomed creature which was made sin for him. The

gesture meant confession, acceptance of the appointed expiation,

submission to be freed from guilt by a method so humiliating and

admonitory. There was no undue exaltation in the mind of any priest

whose heart went with this "remembrance of sins."

The bullock was immediately slain at the door of "the tent of meeting";

and to show that the shedding of his blood was an essential part of the

rite, part of it was put with the finger on the horns of the altar, and

the remainder was poured out at the base. Only then might the fat and

the kidney be burned upon the altar; but it is never said of any

sin-offering, as presently of the burnt-offering and the

peace-offerings, that it is "a sweet savour before Jehovah" (vers. 18,

25)--a phrase which is only once extended to a trespass-offering for a

purely unconscious lapse (Lev. iv. 31). The sin-offering is, at the

best, a deplorable necessity. And therefore the notion of a gift,

welcome to Jehovah, is carefully shut out: no portion of such an

offering may go to maintain the priests: all must be burned "with fire

without the camp; it is a sin-offering" (ver. 14). Rightly does the

Epistle to the Hebrews emphasize this fact: "The bodies of those beasts

whose blood is brought into the Holy Place ... as an offering for sin"

are burned without the camp. The bodies of other sacrifices were not

reckoned unfit for food.[40] And so there is a striking example of

humility, as well as an instructive coincidence, in the fact that Jesus

suffered without the gate, being the true Sin-offering, "that He might

sanctify the people through His own blood" (Heb. xiii. 11, 12).

Thus, by sacrifice for sin, the priest is rendered fit to offer up to

God the symbol of a devoted life. Again, therefore, the hands of Aaron

and his sons are laid upon the head of the ram, because they come to

offer what represents themselves in another sense than that of

expiation--a sweet savour now, an offering made by fire unto Jehovah

(ver. 18). And to show that it is perfectly acceptable to Him, the whole

ram shall be burnt upon the altar, and not now without the camp: "it is

a burnt-offering unto the Lord." Such is the appointed way of God with

man--first expiation, then devotion.

The third animal was a "peace-offering" (ver. 28). This is wrongly

explained to mean an offering by which peace is made, for then there

could be no meaning in what went before. It is the offering of one who

is now in a state of peace with God, and who is therefore himself, in

many cases, allowed to partake of what he brings. But on this occasion

some quite peculiar ceremonies were introduced, and the ram is called by

a strange name--"the ram of consecration." When Aaron and his sons have

again declared their connection with the animal by laying their hands

upon it, it is slain. And then the blood is applied to the tip of their

right ear, the thumb of their right hand, and the great toe of their

right foot, that the ear may hearken, and the best energies obey, and

their life become as that of the consecrated animal, their bodies being

presented, a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God. Then the same

blood, with the oil which spoke of heavenly anointing, was sprinkled

upon them and upon their official robes, and all were hallowed. Then the

fattest and richest parts of the animal were taken, with a loaf, a cake,

and a wafer from the basket, and placed in the hands of Aaron and his

sons. This was their formal investiture with official rights; although

not yet performing service, it was as priests that they received these;

and their hands, swayed by those of Moses, solemnly waved them before

the Lord in formal presentation, after which the pieces were consumed by

fire. The breast was likewise waved, and became the perpetual property

of Aaron and his sons--although on this occasion it passed from their

hands to be the portion of Moses, who officiated. The remainder of the

flesh, seethed in a holy place, belonged to Aaron and his sons. No

stranger (of another family) might eat it, and what was left until

morning should be consumed by fire, that is to say, destroyed in a

manner absolutely clean, seeing no corruption.

For seven days this rite of consecration was repeated; and every day the

altar also was cleansed, rendering it most holy, so that whatever

touched it was holy.

Thus the people saw their representative and chief purified, accepted

and devoted. Thenceforward, when they too brought their offerings, and

beheld them presented (in person or through his subordinates) by the

high priest with holiness emblazoned upon his brow, they gained hope,

and even assurance, since one so consecrated was bidden to present their

intercession; and sometimes they saw him pass into secret places of

mysterious sanctity, bearing their tribal name on his shoulder and his

bosom, while the chime of golden bells announced his movements,

ministering there for them.

But the nation as a whole, with which this historical book is chiefly

interested, saw in the high priest the means of continually rendering to

God the service of its loyalty. Every day began and closed with the

burnt-offering of a lamb of the first year, along with a meal-offering

of fine flour and oil, and a drink-offering of wine. This would be a

sweet savour unto God, not after the carnal fashion in which sceptics

have interpreted the words, but in the same sense in which the wicked

are a smoke in His nostrils from a continually burning fire.

And where this offering was made, the Omnipresent would meet with them.

There He would convey His mind to His priest. There also He would meet

with all the people--not occasionally, as amid the more impressive but

less tolerable splendours of Sinai, but to dwell among them and be their

God. And they should know that all this was true, and also that for this

He led them out of Egypt: "I am Jehovah their God."

FOOTNOTES:

[40] Neither, it must be added, were the bodies of certain sin-offerings

of the lower grade, and in which the priest was not personally concerned

(Lev. x. 17, etc.).

CHAPTER XXX.

_INCENSE._

xxx. 1-10.

The altar of incense was not mentioned when the tent of meeting was

being prepared and furnished. But when, in the Divine idea, this is

done, when all is ready for the intercourse of God and man, and the

priest and the daily victims are provided for, something more than this

formal routine of offerings might yet be sought for. This material

worship of the senses, this round of splendour and of tragedy, this

blaze of gold and gold-encrusted timber, these curtains embroidered in

bright colours, and ministers glowing with gems, this blood and fire

upon the altar, this worldly sanctuary,--was it all? Or should it not do

as nature ever does, which seems to stretch its hands out into the

impalpable, and to grow all but spiritual while we gaze; so that the

mountain folds itself in vapour, and the ocean in mist and foam, and the

rugged stem of the tree is arrayed in fineness of quivering frondage,

and it may be of tinted blossom, and around it breathes a subtle

fragrance, the most impalpable existence known to sense? Fragrance

indeed is matter passing into the immaterial, it is the sigh of the

sensuous for the spiritual state of being, it is an aspiration.

And therefore an altar, smaller than that of burnt-offering, but much

more precious, being plated all around and on the top with gold (a

"golden altar") (xxxix. 38), is now to be prepared, on which incense of

sweet spices should be burned whenever a burnt-offering spoke of human

devotion, and especially when the daily lamb was offered, every morning

and every night.

This altar occupied a significant position. Of necessity, it was without

the Most Holy Place, or else it would have been practically

inaccessible; and yet it was spiritually in the closest connection with

the presence of God within. The Epistle to the Hebrews reckons it among

the furniture of the inner shrine[41] (Heb. ix. 4), close to the veil of

which it stood, and within which its burning odours made their sweetness

palpable. In the temple of Solomon it was "the altar that belonged to

the oracle" (1 Kings vi. 22). In Leviticus (xvi. 12) incense was

connected especially with that spot in the Most Holy Place which best

expressed the grace that it appealed to, and "the cloud of incense" was

to "cover the mercy-seat." Therefore Moses was bidden to put this altar

"before the veil that is by the ark of the testimony, before the

mercy-seat" (ver. 6).

It can never have been difficult to see the meaning of the rite for

which this altar was provided. When Zacharias burned incense the

multitude stood without, praying. The incense in the vial of the angel

of the Apocalypse was the prayers of the saints (Luke i. 10; Rev. viii.

3). And, long before, when the Psalmist thought of the priest

approaching the veil which concealed the Supreme Presence, and there

kindling precious spices until their aromatic breath became a silent

plea within, it seemed to him that his own heart was even such an altar,

whence the perfumed flame of holy longings might be wafted into the

presence of his God, and he whispered, "Let my prayer be set forth

before Thee as incense" (Ps. cxli. 2).

Such being the import of the type, we need not wonder that it was a

perpetual ordinance in their generations, nor yet that no strange

perfume might be offered, but only what was prescribed by God. The

admixture with prayer of any human, self-asserting, intrusive element,

is this unlawful fragrance. It is rhetoric in the leader of extempore

prayer; studied inflexions in the conductor of liturgical service;

animal excitement, or sentimental pensiveness, or assent which is merely

vocal, among the worshippers. It is whatever professes to be prayer, and

is not that but a substitute. And formalism is an empty censer.

But, however earnest and pure may seem to be the breathing of the soul

to God, something unworthy mingles with what is best in man. The very

altar of incense needs to have an atonement made for it once in the year

throughout their generations with the blood of the sin-offering of

atonement. The prayer of every heart which knows its own secret will be

this:

"Forgive what seemed my sin in me,

What seemed my worth since I began;

For merit lives from man to man

And not from man, O Lord, to Thee."

_THE CENSUS._

xxx. 11-16.

Moses by Divine command was soon to number Israel, and thus to lay the

foundation for its organisation upon the march. A census was not,

therefore, supposed to be presumptuous or sinful in itself; it was the

vain-glory of David's census which was culpable.

But the honour of being numbered among the people of God should awaken a

sense of unworthiness. Men had reason to fear lest the enrolment of such

as they were in the host of God should produce a pestilence to sweep out

the unclean from among the righteous. At least they must make some

practical admission of their demerit. And therefore every man of twenty

years who passed over unto them that were numbered (it is a picturesque

glimpse that is here given into the method of enrolment) should offer

for his soul a ransom of half a shekel after the shekel of the

sanctuary. And because it was a ransom, the tribute was the same for

all; the poor might not bring less, nor the rich more. Here was a grand

assertion of the equality of all souls in the eyes of God--a seed which

long ages might overlook, but which was sure to fructify in its

appointed time.

For indeed the madness of modern levelling systems is only their attempt

to level down instead of up, their dream that absolute equality can be

obtained, or being obtained can be made a blessing, by the envious

demolition of all that is lofty, and not by all together claiming the

supreme elevation, the measure of the stature of manhood in Jesus

Christ.

It is not in any _phalanstère_ of Fourier or Harmony Hall of Owen, that

mankind will ever learn to break a common bread and drink of a common

cup; it is at the table of a common Lord.

And so this first assertion of the equality of man was given to those

who all ate the same spiritual meat and drank the same spiritual drink.

This half-shekel gradually became an annual impost, levied for the great

expenses of the Temple. "Thus Joash made a proclamation throughout Judah

and Jerusalem, to bring in for the Lord the tax that Moses, the servant

of God, laid upon Israel in the wilderness" (2 Chron. xxiv. 9).

And it was the claim for this impost, too rashly conceded by Peter with

regard to his Master, which led Jesus to distinguish clearly between His

own relation to God and that of others, even of the chosen race.

He paid no ransom for His soul. He was a Son, in a sense in which no

other, even of the Jews, could claim to be so. Now, the kings of the

earth did not levy tribute from their sons; so that, if Christ paid, it

was not to fulfil a duty, but to avoid being an offence. And God Himself

would provide, directly and miraculously, what He did not demand from

Jesus. Therefore it was that, on this one occasion and no other, Christ

Who sought figs when hungry, and when athirst asked water at alien

hands, met His own personal requirement by a miracle, as if to protest

in deed, as in word, against any burden from such an obligation as

Peter's rashness had conceded.

And yet, with that marvellous condescension which shone most brightly

when He most asserted His prerogative, He admitted Peter also to a share

in this miraculous redemption-money, as He admits us all to a share in

His glory in the skies. Is it not He only Who can redeem His brother,

and give to God a ransom for him?

It is the silver thus levied which was used in the construction of the

sanctuary. All the other materials were free-will offerings; but even as

the entire tabernacle was based upon the ponderous sockets into which

the boards were fitted, made of the silver of this tax, so do all our

glad and willing services depend upon this fundamental truth, that we

are unworthy even to be reckoned His, that we owe before we can bestow,

that we are only allowed to offer any gift because He is so merciful in

His demand. Israel gladly brought much more than was needed of all

things precious. But first, as an absolutely imperative ransom, God

demanded from each soul the half of three shillings and sevenpence.

_THE LAVER._

xxx. 17-21.

For the cleansing of various sacrifices, but especially for the

ceremonial washing of the priests, a laver of brass was to be made, and

placed upon a separate base, the more easily to be emptied and

replenished.

We have seen already that although its actual use preceded that of the

altar, yet the other stood in front of it, as if to assert, to the very

eyes of all men, that sacrifice precedes purification. But the use of

the laver was not by the man as man, but by the priest as mediator. In

his office he represented the absolute purity of Christ. And therefore

it was a capital offence to enter the tabernacle or to burn a sacrifice

without first having washed the hands and feet. At his inauguration, the

whole person of the priest was bathed, and thenceforth he needed not

save to remove the stains of contact with the world.

When the laver was actually made, an interesting fact was recorded about

its materials: "He made the laver of brass, and the base of it of brass,

of the mirrors of the serving-women which served at the door of the tent

of meeting" (xxxviii. 8). Thus their instruments of personal adornment

were applied to further a personal preparation of a more solemn kind,

like the ointment with which a penitent woman anointed the feet of

Jesus. There is a fitness which ought to be considered in the direction

of our gifts, not as a matter of duty, but of good taste and charm. And

thus also they continually saw the monument of their self-sacrifice.

There is an innocent satisfaction, far indeed from vanity, when one

looks at his own work for God.

_THE ANOINTING OIL AND THE INCENSE._

xxx. 22-38.

We have already seen the meaning of the anointing oil and of the

incense.

But we have further to remark that their ingredients were accurately

prescribed, that they were to be the best and rarest of their kind, and

that special skill was demanded in their preparation.

Such was the natural dictate of reverence in preparing the symbols of

God's grace to man, and of man's appeal to God.

With the type of grace should be anointed the tent and the ark, and the

table of shewbread and the candlestick, with all their implements, and

the altar of incense, and the altar of burnt sacrifice and the laver.

All the import of every portion of the Temple worship could be realized

only by the outpouring of the Spirit of grace.

It was added that this should be a holy anointing oil, not to be made,

much less used, for common purposes, on pain of death. The same was

enacted of the incense which should burn before Jehovah: "according to

the composition thereof ye shall not make for yourselves; it shall be

unto thee holy for the Lord: whosoever shall make like unto that, to

smell thereto, he shall be cut off from his people."

And this was meant to teach reverence. One might urge that the spices

and frankincense and salt were not in themselves sacred: there was no

consecrating efficacy in their combination, no charm or spell in the

union of these, more than of any other drugs. Why, then, should they be

denied to culture? Why should her resources be thus restricted? Does any

one suppose that such arguments belong peculiarly to the New Testament

spirit, or that the saints of the older dispensation had any

superstitious views about these ingredients? If it was through such

notions that they abstained from vulgarising its use, then they were on

the way to paganism, through a materialised worship.

But in truth they knew as well as we that gums were only gums, just as

they knew that the Most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands.

And yet they were bidden to reverence both the shrine and the apparatus

of His worship, for their own sakes, for the solemnity and sobriety of

their feelings, not because God would be a loser if they did otherwise.

And we may well ask ourselves, in these latter days, whether the

constant proposal to secularise religious buildings, revenues,

endowments and seasons does really indicate greater religious freedom,

or only greater freedom from religious control.

And we may be sure that a light treatment of sacred subjects and sacred

words is a very dangerous symptom: it is not the words and subjects

alone that are being secularised, but also our own souls.

There is in our time a curious tendency among men of letters to use holy

things for a mere perfume, that literature may "smell thereto."

A novelist has chosen for the title of a story "Just as I am." An

innocent and graceful poet has seen a smile,--

"'Twas such a smile,

Aaron's twelve jewels seemed to mix

With the lamps of the golden candlesticks."

Another is bolder, and sings of the war of love,--

"In the great battle when the hosts are met

On Armageddon's plain, with spears beset."

Another thinks of Mazzini as the

"Dear lord and leader, at whose hand

The first days and the last days stand,"

and again as he who

"Said, when all Time's sea was foam,

'Let there be Rome,' and there was Rome."

And Victor Hugo did not shrink from describing, and that with a strange

and scandalous ignorance of the original incidents, the crucifixion by

Louis Napoleon of the Christ of nations.

Now, Scripture is literature, besides being a great deal more; and, as

such, it is absurd to object to all allusions to it in other

literature. Yet the tendency of which these extracts are examples is not

merely toward allusion, but desecration of solemn and sacred thoughts:

it is the conversion of incense into perfumery.

There is another development of the same tendency, by no means modern,

noted by the prophet when he complains that the message of God has

become as the "very lovely song of one who hath a pleasant voice and

playeth well on an instrument." Wherever divine service is only

appreciated in so far as it is "well rendered," as rich music or stately

enunciation charm the ear, and the surroundings are æsthetic,--wherever

the gospel is heard with enjoyment only of the eloquence or

controversial skill of its rendering, wherever religion is reduced by

the cultivated to a thrill or to a solace, or by the Salvationist to a

riot or a romp, wherever Isaiah and the Psalms are only admired as

poetry, and heaven is only thought of as a languid and sentimental

solace amid wearying cares,--there again is a making of the sacred balms

to smell thereto.

And as often as a minister of God finds in his holy office a mere outlet

for his natural gifts of rhetoric or of administration, he also is

tempted to commit this crime.

FOOTNOTES:

[41] For it is incredible that, in a catalogue of furniture which

included Aaron's rod and the pot of manna, this altar should be omitted,

and "a golden censer," elsewhere unheard of, substituted. The gloss is

too evidently an endeavour to get rid of a difficulty. But in idea and

suggestion this altar belonged to the Most Holy. That shrine "had" it,

though it actually stood outside.

CHAPTER XXXI.

_BEZALEEL AND AHOLIAB._

xxxi. 1-18.

Next after this marking off so sharply of the holy from the profane,

this consecration of men to special service, this protection of sacred

unguents and sacred gums from secular use, we come upon a passage

curiously contrasted, yet not really antagonistic to the last, of

marvellous practical wisdom, and well calculated to make a nation wise

and great.

The Lord announces that He has called by name Bezaleel, the son of Uri,

and has filled him with the Spirit of God. To what sacred office, then,

is he called? Simply to be a supreme craftsman, the rarest of artisans.

This also is a divine gift. "I have filled him with the Spirit of God in

wisdom and in understanding and in knowledge and in all manner of

workmanship, to devise cunning works, to work in gold and in silver and

in brass and in cutting of stones for setting, and in carving of wood,

to work in all manner of workmanship,"--that is to say, of manual

dexterity. With him God had appointed Aholiab; "and in the hearts of all

the wise-hearted I have put wisdom." Thus should be fitly made the

tabernacle and its furniture, and the finely wrought garments, and the

anointing oil and the incense.

So then it appears that the Holy Spirit of God is to be recognised in

the work of the carpenter and the jeweller, the apothecary and the

tailor. Probably we object to such a statement, so baldly put. But

inspiration does not object. Moses told the children of Israel that

Jehovah had filled Bezaleel with the Spirit of God, and also Aholiab,

for the work "of the engraver ... and of the embroiderer ... and of the

weaver" (xxxv. 31, 35).

It is quite clear that we must cease to think of the Divine Spirit as

inspiring only prayers and hymns and sermons. All that is good and

beautiful and wise in human art is the gift of God. We feel that the

supreme Artist is audible in the wind among the pines; but is man left

to himself when he marshals into more sublime significance the voices of

the wind among the organ tubes? At sunrise and sunset we feel that

"On the beautiful mountains the pictures of God are hung";

but is there no revelation of glory and of freshness in other pictures?

Once the assertion that a great masterpiece was "inspired" was a clear

recognition of the central fire at which all genius lights its lamp:

now, alas! it has become little more than a sceptical assumption that

Isaiah and Milton are much upon a level. But the doctrine of this

passage is the divinity of all endowment; it is quite another thing to

claim Divine authority for a given product sprung from the free human

being who is so richly crowned and gifted.

Thus far we have smoothed our way by speaking only of poetry, painting,

music--things which really compete with nature in their spiritual

suggestiveness. But Moses spoke of the robe-maker, the embroiderer, the

weaver, and the perfumer.

Nevertheless, the one is carried with the other. Where shall we draw the

line, for example, in architecture or in ironwork? And there is another

consideration which must not be overlooked. God is assuredly in the

growth of humanity, in the progress of true civilisation--in all, the

recognition of which makes history philosophical. It is not only the

saints who feel themselves to be the instruments of a Greater than they.

Cromwell and Bismarck, Columbus, Raleigh and Drake, William the Silent

and William the Third, felt it. Mr. Stanley has told us how the

consciousness that he was being used grew up in him, not through

fanaticism but by slow experience, groping his way through the gloom of

Central Africa.

But none will deny that one of the greatest factors in modern history is

its industrial development. Is there, then, no sacredness here?

The doctrine of Scripture is not that man is a tool, but that he is

responsible for vast gifts, which come directly from heaven--that every

good gift is from above, that it was God Himself Who planted in Paradise

the tree of knowledge.

Nor would anything do more to restrain the passions, to calm the

impulses and to elevate the self-respect of modern life, to call back

its energies from the base competition for gold, and make our industries

what dreamers persuade themselves that the mediæval industries were,

than a quick and general perception of what is meant when faculty goes

by such names as talent, endowment, gift--of the glory of its use, the

tragedy of its defilement. Many persons, indeed, reject this doctrine

because they cannot believe that man has power to abase so high a thing

so sadly. But what, then, do they think of the human body?

What connection is there between all this and the reiteration of the law

of the Sabbath? Not merely that the moral law is now made a civic

statute as well, for this had been done already (xxiii. 12). But, as our

Lord has taught us that a Jew on the Sabbath was free to perform works

of mercy, it might easily be supposed lawful, and even meritorious, to

hasten forward the construction of the place where God would meet His

people. But He who said "I will have mercy and not sacrifice" said also

that to obey was better than sacrifice. Accordingly this caution closes

the long story of plans and preparations. And when Moses called the

people to the work, his first words were to repeat it (xxxv. 2).

Finally, there was given to Moses the deposit for which so noble a

shrine was planned--the two tables of the law, miraculously produced.

If any one, without supposing that they were literally written with a

literal finger, conceives that this was the meaning conveyed to a Hebrew

by the expression "written with the finger of God," he entirely misses

the Hebrew mode of thought, which habitually connects the Lord with an

arm, with a chariot, with a bow made naked, with a tent and curtains,

without the slightest taint of materialism in its conception. Did not

the magicians, failing to imitate the third plague, say "This is the

finger of a God"? Did not Jesus Himself "cast out devils by the finger

of God"? (Ex. viii. 19; Luke xi. 20).

CHAPTER XXXII.

_THE GOLDEN CALF._

xxxii.

While God was thus providing for Israel, what had Israel done with God?

They had grown weary of waiting: had despaired of and slighted their

heroic leader, ("this Moses, the man that brought us up,") had demanded

gods, or a god, at the hand of Aaron, and had so far carried him with

them or coerced him that he thought it a stroke of policy to save them

from breaking the first commandment by joining them in a breach of the

second, and by infecting "a feast to Jehovah" with the licentious "play"

of paganism. At the beginning, the only fitness attributed to Aaron was

that "he can speak well." But the plastic and impressible temperament of

a gifted speaker does not favour tenacity of will in danger. Demosthenes

and Cicero, and Savonarola, the most eloquent of the reformers,

illustrate the tendency of such genius to be daunted by visible perils.

God now rejects them because the covenant is violated. As Jesus spoke no

longer of "My Father's house," but "your house, left unto you desolate,"

so the Lord said to Moses, "thy people which thou broughtest up."

But what are we to think of the proposal to destroy them, and to make of

Moses a great nation?

We are to learn from it the solemn reality of intercession, the power of

man with God, Who says not that He will destroy them, but that He will

destroy them if left alone. Who can tell, at any moment, what calamities

the intercession of the Church is averting from the world or from the

nation?

The first prayer of Moses is brief and intense; there is passionate

appeal, care for the Divine honour, remembrance of the saintly dead for

whose sake the living might yet be spared, and absolute forgetfulness of

self. Already the family of Aaron had been preferred to his, but the

prospect of monopolising the Divine predestination has no charm for this

faithful and patriotic heart. No sooner has the immediate destruction

been arrested than he hastens to check the apostates, makes them exhibit

the madness of their idolatry by drinking the water in which the dust of

their pulverised god was strewn; receives the abject apology of Aaron,

thoroughly spirit-broken and demoralised; and finding the sons of Levi

faithful, sends them to the slaughter of three thousand men. Yet this is

he who said "O Lord, why is Thy wrath hot against Thy people?" He

himself felt it needful to cut deep, in mercy, and doubtless in wrath as

well, for true affection is not limp and nerveless: it is like the ocean

in its depth, and also in its tempests. And the stern action of the

Levites appeared to him almost an omen; it was their "consecration," the

beginning of their priestly service.

Again he returns to intercede; and if his prayer must fail, then his own

part in life is over: let him too perish among the rest. For this is

evidently what he means and says: he has not quite anticipated the

spirit of Christ in Paul willing to be anathema for his brethren (Rom.

ix. 3), nor has the idea of a vicarious human sacrifice been suggested

to him by the institutions of the sanctuary. Yet how gladly would he

have died for his people, who made request that he might die among them!

How nobly he foreshadows, not indeed the Christian doctrine, but the

love of Christ Who died for man, Who from the Mount of Transfiguration,

as Moses from Sinai, came down (while Peter would have lingered) to bear

the sins of His brethren! How superior He is to the Christian hymn which

pronounces nothing worth a thought, except how to make my own election

sure.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

_PREVAILING INTERCESSION._

xxxiii.

At this stage the first concession is announced: Moses shall lead the

people to their rest, and God will send an angel with him.

We have seen that the original promise of a great Angel in whom was the

Divine Presence was full of encouragement and privilege (xxiii. 20). No

unbiassed reader can suppose that it is the sending of this same Angel

of the Presence which now expresses the absence of God, or that He Who

then would not pardon their transgression "because My Name is in Him" is

now sent because God, if He were in the midst of them for a moment,

would consume them. Nor, when Moses passionately pleads against this

degradation, and is heard in this thing also, can the answer "My

Presence shall go with thee" be merely the repetition of those evil

tidings. Yet it was the Angel of His Presence Who saved them. All this

has been already treated, and what we are now to learn is that the

faithful and sublime urgency of Moses did really save Israel from

degradation and a lower covenant.

It was during the progress of this mediation that Moses distracted by a

double anxiety--afraid to absent himself from his wayward followers,

equally afraid to be so long withdrawn from the presence of God as the

descending of Sinai and returning thither would involve--made a noble

adventure of faith. Inspired by the conception of the tabernacle, he

took a tent, "his tent," and pitched it outside the camp, to express the

estrangement of the people, and this he called the Tent of the Meeting

(with God), but in the Hebrew it is never called the Tabernacle. And God

did condescend to meet him there. The mystic cloud guarded the door

against presumptuous intrusion, and all the people, who previously wist

not what had become of him, had now to confess the majesty of his

communion, and they worshipped every man at his tent door.

It would seem that the anxious vigilance of Moses caused him to pass to

and fro between the tent and the camp, "but his minister, Joshua the son

of Nun, departed not out of the tent."

The dread crisis in the history of the nation was now almost over. God

had said, "My Presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee

rest,"--a phrase which the lowly Jesus thought it no presumption to

appropriate, saying, "_I_ will give you rest," as He also appropriated

the office of the Shepherd, the benevolence of the Physician, the

tenderness of the Bridegroom, and the glory of the King and the Judge,

all of which belonged to God.

But Moses is not content merely to be secure, for it is natural that he

who best loves man should also best love God. Therefore he pleads

against the least withdrawal of the Presence: he cannot rest until

repeatedly assured that God will indeed go with him; he speaks as if

there were no "grace" but that. There are many people now who think it

a better proof of being religious to feel either anxious or comforted

about their own salvation, their election, and their going to heaven.

And these would do wisely to consider how it comes to pass that the

Bible first taught men to love and to follow God, and afterwards

revealed to them the mysteries of the inner life and of eternity.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

_THE VISION OF GOD._

xxxiv.

It was when God had most graciously assured Moses of His affection, that

he ventured, in so brief a cry that it is almost a gasp of longing, to

ask, "Show me, I pray Thee, Thy glory" (xxxiii. 18).

We have seen how nobly this petition and the answer condemn all

anthropomorphic misunderstandings of what had already been revealed; and

also how it exemplifies the great law, that they who see most of God,

know best how much is still unrevealed. The elders saw the God of Israel

and did eat and drink: Moses was led from the bush to the flaming top of

Sinai, and thence to the tent where the pillar of cloud was as a

sentinel; but the secret remained unseen, the longing unsatisfied, and

the nearest approach to the Beatific Vision reached by him with whom God

spake face to face as with a friend, was to be hidden in a cleft of the

rock, to be aware of an awful Shadow, and to hear the Voice of the

Unseen.

It was a fit time for the proclamation which was then made. When the

people had been righteously punished and yet graciously forgiven, the

name of the Self-Existent expanded and grew clearer,--"Jehovah, Jehovah,

a God full of compassion and gracious, slow to anger and plenteous in

mercy and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and

transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty,

visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and upon the

children's children, upon the third and upon the fourth generation." And

as Moses made haste and bowed himself, it is affecting to hear him again

pleading for that beloved Presence which even yet he can scarce believe

to be restored, and instead of claiming any separation through his

fidelity and his honours, praying "Pardon our iniquity and our sin, and

take us for Thine inheritance" (xxxiv. 10).

Thereupon the covenant is given, as if newly, but without requiring its

actual re-enactment; and certain of the former precepts are rehearsed,

chiefly such as would guard against a relapse into idolatry when they

entered the good land where God would bestow on them prosperity and

conquest.

As Moses had broken the former tablets, the task was imposed on him of

hewing out the slabs on which God renewed His awful sanction of the

Decalogue, the fundamental statutes of the nation. And they who had

failed to endure his former absence, were required to be patient while

he tarried again upon the mountain, forty days and nights.

With his return a strange incident is connected. Unknown by himself, the

"skin of his face shone by reason of His speaking with him," and Aaron

and the people recoiled until he called to them. And thenceforth he

lived a strange and isolated life. At each new interview the glory of

his countenance was renewed, and when he conveyed his revelation to the

people, they beheld the lofty sanction, the light of God upon his face.

Then he veiled his face until next he approached his God, so that none

might see what changes came there, and whether--as St. Paul seems to

teach us--the lustre gradually waned.

His revelation, the apostle argues, was like this occasional and fading

gleam, while the moral glory of the Christian system has no

concealments: it uses great frankness; there is nothing withdrawn, no

veil upon the face. Nor is it given to one alone to behold as in a

mirror the glory of the Lord, and to share its lustre. We all, with face

unveiled, share this experience of the deliverer (2 Cor. iii. 12, 18).

But the incident itself is most instructive. Since he had already spent

an equal time with God, yet no such results had followed, it seems that

we receive what we are adapted to receive, not straitened in Him but in

our own capabilities; and as Moses, after his vehemence of intercession,

his sublimity of self-negation, and his knowledge of the greater name of

God, received new lustre from the unchangeable Fountain of light, so

does all true service and earnest aspiration, while it approaches God,

elevate and glorify humanity.

We learn also something of the exaltation of which matter is capable. We

who have seen coarse bulb and soil and rain transmuted by the sunshine

into radiance of bloom and subtlety of perfume, who have seen plain

faces illuminated from within until they were almost angelic,--may we

not hope for something great and rare for ourselves, and the beloved who

are gone, as we muse upon the profound word, "It is raised a spiritual

body"?

And again we learn that the best religious attainment is the least

self-conscious: Moses wist not that the skin of his face shone.

CHAPTERS XXXV-XL.

_THE CONCLUSION._

The remainder of the narrative sets forth in terms almost identical with

the directions already given, the manner in which the Divine injunctions

were obeyed. The people, purified in heart by danger, chastisement and

shame, brought much more than was required. A quarter of a million would

poorly represent the value of the shrine in which, at the last, Moses

and Aaron approached their God, while the cloud covered the tent and the

glory filled the tabernacle, and Moses failed to overcome his awe and

enter.

Thenceforth the cloud was the guide of their halting and their march.

Many a time they grieved their God in the wilderness, yet the cloud was

on the tabernacle by day, and there was fire therein by night,

throughout all their journeyings.

That cloud is seen no longer; but One has said, "Lo, I am with you all

the days." If the presence is less material, it is because we ought to

be more spiritual.

* * * * *

Looking back upon the story, we can discern more clearly what was

asserted when we began--the forming and training of a nation.

They are called from shameful servitude by the devotion of a patriot and

a hero, who has learned in failure and exile the difference between

self-confidence and faith. The new name of God, and His remembrance of

their fathers, inspire them at the same time with awe and hope and

nationality. They see the hollowness of earthly force, and of

superstitious worships, in the abasement and ruin of Egypt. They are

taught by the Paschal sacrifice to confess that the Divine favour is a

gift and not a right, that their lives also are justly forfeited. The

overthrow of Pharaoh's army and the passage of the Sea brings them into

a new and utterly strange life, in an atmosphere and amid scenes well

calculated to expand and deepen their emotions, to develop their sense

of freedom and self-respect, and yet to oblige them to depend wholly on

their God. Privation at Marah chastens them. The attack of Amalek

introduces them to war, and forbids their dependence to sink into abject

softness. The awful scene of Horeb burns and brands his littleness into

man. The covenant shows them that, however little in themselves, they

may enter into communion with the Eternal. It also crushes out what is

selfish and individualising, by making them feel the superiority of what

they all share over anything that is peculiar to one of them. The

Decalogue reveals a holiness at once simple and profound, and forms a

type of character such as will make any nation great. The sacrificial

system tells them at once of the pardon and the heinousness of sin.

Religion is both exalted above the world and infused into it, so that

all is consecrated. The priesthood and the shrine tell them of sin and

pardon, exclusion and hope; but that hope is a common heritage, which

none may appropriate without his brother.

The especial sanctity of a sacred calling is balanced by an immediate

assertion of the sacredness of toil, and the Divine Spirit is recognised

even in the gift of handicraft.

A tragic and shameful failure teaches them, more painfully than any

symbolic system of curtains and secret chambers, how little fitted they

are for the immediate intercourse of heaven. And yet the ever-present

cloud, and the shrine in the heart of their encampment, assure them that

God is with them of a truth.

Could any better system be imagined by which to convert a slavish and

superstitious multitude into a nation at once humble and pure and

gallant--a nation of brothers and of worshippers, chastened by a genuine

sense of ill desert and of responsibility, and yet braced and fired by

the conviction of an exalted destiny?

To do this, and also to lead mankind to liberty, to rescue them from

sensuous worship, and prepare them for a system yet more spiritual, to

teach the human race that life is not repose but warfare, pilgrimage and

aspiration, and to sow the seeds of beliefs and expectations which only

an atoning Mediator and an Incarnate God could satisfy, this was the

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