familiar, is immaterial for the present purpose. What is essential is that
beside the decalogue itself there is a considerable body of law chiefly
concerned with the position of servants or slaves, the difference between
assaults or torts committed with or without malice, theft, trespass, and
the regulation of the _lex talionis_. There are beside a variety of
other matters touched upon all of which may be found in the 21st, 22d, and
23d chapters of Exodus.

Up to this point in his show Moses had behaved with discretion and had
obtained a complete success. The next day he went on to demand an
acceptance of his code, which he prepared to submit in form. But as a
preliminary he made ready to take Aaron and his two sons, together with
seventy elders of the congregation up the mountain, to be especially
impressed with a sacrifice and a feast which he had it in his mind to
organize. In the first place, "Moses ... rose up early in the morning, and
builded an altar, ... and sacrificed peace offerings of oxen unto the
Lord....

"And he took the book of the covenant, and read in the audience of the
people: and they said, All that the Lord hath said will we do, and be
obedient."

Had Moses been content to end his ceremony here and to return to the camp
with his book of the covenant duly accepted as law, all might have been
well. But success seems to have intoxicated him, and he conceived an undue
contempt for the intelligence of his audience, being, apparently,
convinced that there were no limits to their credulity, and that he could
do with them as he pleased.

It was not enough for him that he should have them accept an ordinary book