Introduction to the Old Testament | Page 9

upon the mount, the people imperilled their
covenant relationship with their God by worshipping Him in the form
of a calf; but, on the very earnest intercession of Moses they were

forgiven, and there was given to him the special revelation of Jehovah
as a God of forgiving pity and abounding grace. In the tent to which the
people regularly resorted to learn the divine will, God was wont to
speak to Moses face to face, xxxii. 1-xxxiv. 9. Then follows the other
version of the decalogue already referred to--ritual rather than moral,
xxxiv. l0-28--and an account of the transfiguration of Moses, as he laid
Jehovah's commands upon the people, xxxiv. 29-35. From this point to
the end of the book the atmosphere is again unmistakably priestly. Chs.
xxxv.-xxxix, beginning with the Sabbath law, assert with a profusion of
detail that the instructions given in xxv.-xxxi. were carried out to the
letter. Then the tabernacle was set up on New Year's day, the divine
glory filled it, and the subsequent movements of the people were
guided by cloud and fire (xl.).
The unity of Exodus is not quite so impressive as that of Genesis. This
is due to the different proportion in which the sources are blended, P
playing a much more conspicuous part here than there. Without
hesitation, more than one-fourth of the book may be at once relegated
to this source: viz. xxv.-xxxi., which describe the tabernacle to be
erected with all that pertained to it, and xxxv.-xl., which relate that the
instructions there given were fully carried out. The minuteness, the
formality and monotony of style which we noticed in Genesis reappear
here; but the real spirit of P, its devotion to everything connected with
the sanctuary and worship, is much more obvious here than there. This
document is also fairly prominent in the first half of the book, and its
presence is usually easy to detect. The section, e.g., on the institution of
the passover and the festival of unleavened bread, xi. 9-xii. 20, is easily
recognized as belonging to this source. Of very great importance is the
passage, vi. 2-13, which describes the revelation given to Moses,
asserting that the fathers knew the God of Israel only by the name El
Shaddai, while the name of Jehovah, which was then revealed to Moses
for the first time, was unknown to them. The succeeding genealogy
which traces the descent of Moses and Aaron to Levi, vi. 14-30, and
Aaron's commission to be the spokesman of Moses, vii. 1-7, also come
from P. This source also gives a brief account of the oppression and the
plagues, and the prominence of Aaron the priest in the story of the
latter is very significant. In E the plagues come when Moses stretches
out his hand or his rod at the command of Jehovah, ix. 22, x. 12, 21; in

P, Jehovah says to Moses, "Say unto _Aaron_, 'Stretch forth thy hand'
or 'thy rod,'" viii. 5, 16.
The story to which we have just alluded, of the revelation of the name
Jehovah, is also told in ch. iii., where it is connected with the incident
of the burning bush. Apart from the improbability of the same
document telling the same story twice, the very picturesque setting of
ch. iii, is convincing proof that we have here a section from one of the
prophetic documents, and we cannot long doubt which it is. For while
one of those documents (J), as we have seen, uses the word Jehovah
without scruple throughout the whole of Genesis, and regards that
name as known not only to Abraham, xv. 7, but even to the
antediluvians, iv. 26, the other regularly uses Elohim. This prophetic
story, then, of the revelation of the name Jehovah to Moses, must
belong to E, who deliberately avoids the name Jehovah throughout
Genesis, because he considers it unknown before the time of Moses.
This very fact, however, greatly complicates the subsequent analysis of
the prophetic documents in the Pentateuch; because, from this point on,
both are now free to use the name Jehovah of the divine Being, and
thus one of the principal clues to the analysis practically disappears.[1]
Considering the affinity of these documents, it is therefore competent,
as we have seen, to treat them as a unity. [Footnote 1: Naturally there
are other very important and valuable clues. e.g, the holy mount is
called Sinai in J and Horeb in E.]
The proof, however, that both prophetic documents are really present in
Exodus, if not at first sight obvious or extensive, is at any rate
convincing. In one source, e.g. (J), the Israelites dwell by themselves in
a district called Goshen, viii. 22 (cf. Gen. xiv. 10); in the other, they
dwell among the Egyptians as neighbours, so that