of a careful study of the same subject from a
totally different point of view.

There is abundant evidence in the books of Samuel and elsewhere that
an article of dress termed an _ephod_ was supposed to have a peculiar
efficacy in enabling the wearer to exercise divination by means of
Jahveh-Elohim. Great and long continued have been the disputes as to the
exact nature of the ephod--whether it always means something to wear, or
whether it sometimes means an image. But the probabilities are that
it usually signifies a kind of waistcoat or broad zone, with
shoulder-straps, which the person who "inquired of Jahveh" put on. In
1 Samuel xxiii. 2 David appears to have inquired without an ephod, for
Abiathar the priest is said to have "come down with an ephod in his
hand" only subsequently. And then David asks for it before inquiring of
Jahveh whether the men of Keilah would betray him or not. David's action
is obviously divination pure and simple; and it is curious that he seems
to have worn the ephod himself and not to have employed Abiathar as a
medium. How the answer was given is not clear though the probability is
that it was obtained by casting lots. The _Urim_ and _Thummim_ seem to
have been two such lots of a peculiarly sacred character, which were
carried in the pocket of the high priest's "breastplate." This last was
worn along with the ephod.

With the exception of one passage (1 Sam. xiv. 18) the ark is ignored in
the history of Saul. But in this place the Septuagint reads "ephod" for
ark, while in 1 Chronicles xiii. 3 David says that "we sought not unto
it [the ark] in the days of Saul." Nor does Samuel seem to have paid
any regard to the ark after its return from Philistia; though, in his
childhood, he is said to have slept in "the temple of Jahveh, where the
ark of Elohim was" (1 Sam. iii. 3), at Shiloh and there to have been the
seer of the earliest apparitions vouchsafed to him by Jahveh. The
space between the cherubim or winged images on the canopy or cover
(_Kapporeth_) of this holy chest was held to be the special seat of
Jahveh--the place selected for a temporary residence of the Supreme
Elohim who had, after Aaron and Phineas, Eli and his sons for priests
and seers. And, when the ark was carried to the camp at Eben-ezer, there
can be no doubt that the Israelites, no less than the Philistines, held
that "Elohim is come into the camp" (iv. 7), and that the one, as much
as the other, conceived that the Isra