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Introduction to the Old Testament by John Edgar McFadyen
page 25 of 318 (07%)
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
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