s tabernacle and priesthood_. At Sinai God enters into a national
covenant with the people, grounded on the preceding Abrahamic covenant;
promulgates in awful majesty the ten commandments, which he afterwards
writes on two tables of stone, and adds a code of civil regulations.
Chaps. 19-23. The covenant is then written and solemnly ratified by the
blood of sacrifices. Chap. 24. After this follows a direction which
contains in itself the whole idea of the sanctuary: "_Let them make me a
sanctuary; that I may dwell among them_." Chap. 25:8. The remainder of
the book is mainly occupied with the structure of the tabernacle and its
furniture, and the establishment of the Levitical priesthood. Directions
are given for the priestly garments, and the mode of inauguration is
prescribed; but the inauguration itself belongs to the following book.
The narrative is interrupted by the sin of the people in the matter of
the golden calf, with the various incidents and precepts connected with
it (chaps. 32-34), and a repetition of the law of the Sabbath is added.
Chap. 31:12-17. The office, then, which the book of Exodus holds in the
Pentateuch is definite and clear.

8. With regard to the _time of the sojourn_ in Egypt, two opinions are
held among biblical scholars. The words of God to Abraham: "Know of a
surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs,
and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years,"
"but in the fourth generation they shall come hither again" (Gen. 15:13,
16); and also the statement of Moses: "Now the sojourning of the
children of Israel who dwelt in Egypt, was four hundred and thirty
years" (Exod. 12:40), seem to imply that they spent four hundred and
thirty years _in Egypt_ (a round number being put in the former passage
for the more exact specification of the latter). It has been thought,
also, that the vast increase of the people in Egypt--to six hundred
thousand men (Exod. 12:37), which shows that the whole number of souls
was over two millions--required a sojourn of this length. On the other
hand, the apostle Paul speaks of the law as given "four hundred and
thirty years _after_" _the promise to Abraham_. Gal. 3:17. In this he
follows the Jewish chronology, which is also that of the Septuagint and
Samaritan Pentateuch, for they read in Exod. 12:40: "who dwelt in Egypt
and in the land of Canaan." The words, "in the land of Canaan," are
undoubtedly an added gloss; but the