CHAPTER V
EXODUS, LEVITICUS, NUMBERS
In the early chapters of Exodus the narrative is chiefly a combination of J and E; the first considerable extract from P is Exod. vi. 2-vii. 13, recalling the covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and announcing its approaching fulfilment, adding, as the signature of the new epoch of the history now opening, the revelation of the name God, Jehovah (Jahveh), which none of the patriarchs had known.
In the story of the plagues all three sources are interwoven; a distinctive feature of P is that Aaron with his wand, under Moses' direction, brings the plagues to pass. The announcement of the last plague is the occasion for P to introduce the ordinance of the Passover. The houses of the Israelites are to be marked by the blood of the victim on the door-posts and lintel: when Jehovah passes through the land, smiting dead all the first-born of the Egyptians, he will "skip" the houses so protected—thus the name of the feast is explained (Exod. xii. 1-13). To this is annexed a law for the observance of the feast of Unleavened Bread, which in Palestine immediately followed the Passover (xii. 14-20). With the institution of the Passover is connected also a change in the calendar: henceforth the month of the vernal full moon (March-April) is to be the first of the year. It was so in the ecclesiastical calendar of later times, but the civil New Year was, and still is, in the Autumn.
All the strands of the triple narrative lead to a holy mountain in the desert (Sinai in P and probably in J; Horeb in E and D), the Mount of God, represented in all as the ancient seat of Jehovah. It was on this mountain that God appeared to Moses and bade him return to Egypt to deliver Israel: when he had brought the people out of Egypt they should worship at this mountain. Thither, therefore, Moses directs their way after crossing the Red Sea. In all the sources God's presence is manifested by cloud and fire upon the mountain, and Moses goes to the summit to meet God (Exod. 19, J, E; xxiv. 15b-18a, P). These imposing preparations portend a revelation of no common moment; and the whole situation bids us expect the organic law of the religion of Jehovah, the things which he requires of his worshippers.
We find, in fact, in each of the three sources at this point larger or smaller groups of laws purporting to be delivered to Moses at the holy mountain, and containing what may be regarded as fundamental institutions. These bodies of law are, however, very different; the problem of their relation to one another and to the narratives is extremely difficult, and the parallel account of the legislation at Horeb in Deut. 5 adds another element to the complication. If the reader will attentively compare Exod. 20; 21-23; 24; Deut. 5; ix. 8-x. 5; and Exod. 34, he will get some impression of the nature of the difficulties. According to Deut. v. 22, the Decalogue (Deut. v. 6-21; Exod. xx. 1-17, with noteworthy variants) was the law written on the two tables of stone by the hand of God which Moses dashed down and shattered when he saw the people wantoning around the golden calf (Exod. xxxii. 19). God proposes to reproduce the law on two new tablets (xxxiv. 1), but the Decalogue (xxxiv. 28) written on these tablets (xxxiv. 14-26) is wholly different from that of Exod. 20, being not a compend of moral law, but prescriptions for the festivals and ritual rules, whereas Deut. ix. 8-x. 5 says in so many words that it was the Decalogue of v. 6-21 which was restored.
It is impossible to discuss these problems here. It must suffice to say that they arise in part from the attempt to harmonize radically different representations of what the fundamental law given at Sinai (or Horeb) was, in part from the tendency of later times to ascribe to the original Mosaic legislation the whole body of actual law regarded as having a religious sanction. To the latter cause we may without hesitation attribute, for example, the introduction of the fragmentary remains of a Palestinian civil code in Exod. 21-22, to which other remnants of diverse origin have been attached, as well as the great mass of ritual and ceremonial laws which are thrust into the framework of P.
The fundamental law of J, the basis of the original compact between Jehovah and Israel, is preserved in Exod. xxxiv. 1-5, 10a, 14-28 (with some manifest amplifications in vss. 15, 16, 24). When this was combined with the story of the golden calf and the broken tables (E), it was necessary to take it as a renewal of the law, and this was accomplished by very slight additions in vss. 1 and 4 ("like unto the first," "that were on the first tables, which thou brakest").
What the Horeb constitution in E originally was, is less confidently to be determined. In the form in which E was read by the authors of Deut. 5 and of ix. 8-x. 5 (end of the seventh century or later), it was the Decalogue only (Deut. v. 22 f.); but it is not certain that this was the oldest representation. There are other evidences that E was revised and enlarged in the seventh century by an author who was influenced by the prophets, particularly by Hosea; and the story of the golden calf (with which the Decalogue narrative is closely connected), a condemnation in advance of the Israelite worship of Jehovah in the image of a bull, may have been introduced in this edition, as the repudiation of the sacrifice of children to Jehovah in the story of Abraham and Isaac (Gen. 22) probably was.
In P the case is clearer. According to his theory all the ordinances of worship were revealed at Sinai. Legitimate sacrifice presupposes one legitimate temple and altar, a legitimate priesthood, and a minutely prescribed ritual. In J and E the patriarchs set up altars and offer sacrifice in many places; it is an obvious interest of the authors, or of the local legends of holy places which they follow, to trace the origin of the altars, sacred stones, holy trees and wells, at Shechem or Bethel, Hebron or Beersheba, to one of the forefathers. In P, on the contrary, the patriarchs never offer sacrifice. Until the tabernacle was erected and God's presence filled it, until Aaron was consecrated as priest, until the technique of the various species of offering had been revealed by God and exemplified by Moses or Aaron, no sacrifice could be anything but impious, like the worship of heathen.