his ceremonial system, to teach and to cultivate,—­that of holiness.  God is a holy God, his law is a holy law, the place of his worship is a holy place, and the Jewish nation as his worshippers are a holy people.  This belief appears in the first revelation which he received at the burning bush in the land of Midian.  It explains many things in the Levitical law, which without this would seem trivial and unmeaning.  The ceremonial purifications, clean and unclean meats, the arrangements of the tabernacle, with its holy place, and its Holy of Holies, the Sabbath, the dresses of the priests, the ointment with which the altar was anointed, are all intended to develop in the minds of the people the idea of holiness.[354] And there never was a people on whose souls this notion was so fully impressed as it was upon the Jews.  Examined, it means the eternal distinction between right and wrong, between good and evil, and the essential hostility which exists between them.  Applied to God, it shows him to have a nature essentially moral, and a true moral character.  He loves good and hates evil.  He does not regard them with exactly the same feeling.  He cannot treat the good man and the bad man in exactly the same way.  More than monotheism, this perhaps is the characteristic of the theology of Moses.

The character of Moses had very marked deficiencies, it had its weakness as well as its strength.  He was impetuous, impatient, wanting in self-possession and self-control.  There is a verse in the Book of Numbers (believed by Eichhorn and Eosenmuller to be an interpolation) which calls him the meekest of men.  Such a view of his character is not confirmed by such actions as his killing the Egyptian, his breaking the stone tables, and the like.  He declares of himself that he had no power as a speaker, being deficient probably in the organ of language.  His military skill seems small, since he appointed Joshua for the military commander, when the people were attacked by the Amalekites.  Nor did he have, what seems more important in a legislator, the practical tact of organizing the administration of affairs.  His father-in-law, Jethro, showed him how to delegate the details of government to subordinates, and to reserve for himself the general superintendence.  Up to that time he had tried to do everything by himself.  That great art, in administration, of selecting proper tools to work with, Moses did not seem to have.

Having thus briefly sketched some of the qualities of his natural genius and character, let us see what were the essential elements of his legislation; and first, of his theology, or teachings concerning God.