*** This is the title given in Exod. xxiv. 7 to a writing in which Moses is said to have entered the covenant made between Jahveh and Israel; it is preserved, with certain interpolations and alterations, in Exod. xx. 23?—­xxiii. 33.  It was inserted in its entirety in the Elohist narrative, there taking the place at present occupied by Deuteronomy in the Pentateuch, viz. that of the covenant made between Jahveh and Israel prior to the crossing of the Jordan (Kuenen, H.  C. Onderzoek, i.  Sec. 13, No. 32).  Reuss tries to make out that it was the code promulgated on the occasion of Jehoshaphat’s legal reforms, which is only referred to in 2 Chron. xvii. 7-9; cf. xix. 5.  A more probable theory is that it was the “custom” of one of the great sanctuaries of the northern kingdom reduced to writing at the end of the Xth or during the IXth century B.C.

[Illustration:  202.jpg EGYPTIAN ALTAR AT DEIK-EL-BAHARI]

     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a restoration by Naville.

The directions in regard to ritual are extremely simple, and the moral code is based throughout on the inexorable lex talionis, “Life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe."* This brief code must have been almost universally applicable to every conjuncture of civil and religious life in Judah no less than in Israel.  On one point only do we find a disagreement, and that is in connection with the one and only Holy of Holies to the possession of which the southern kingdom had begun to lay claim:  in a passage full of significance Jahveh declares, “An altar of earth thou shalt make unto Me, and shalt sacrifice thereon thy burnt offerings and thy peace offerings, thy sheep and thine oxen:  in every place where I record My name I will come unto thee and I will bless thee.  And if thou make Me an altar of stone, thou shalt not build it of hewn stones:  for if thou lift up thy tool upon it, thou hast polluted it.  Neither shalt thou go up by steps unto Mine altar, that thy nakedness be not discovered thereon."**

     * Exod. xxi. 23-25.

     ** Exod. xx. 24-26.

The patriarchs and early ancestors of the race had performed their sacrifices in the open air, on rude and low altars, differing widely from lofty and elaborately ornamented erections like those at Jerusalem, which seem to have borne a resemblance to the altars of the Egyptians:  the author of the Book of the Covenant advises the faithful to follow the example of those great men rather than that of the Levites of Judah.  Nevertheless this multiplicity of high places was not without its dangers; it led the common people to confuse Jahveh with the idols of Canaan, and encouraged the spread of foreign superstitions.  The misfortunes which had come thick and fast upon the Israelites ever since the division of the kingdom had made them only too ready to seek elsewhere that support and consolation