to Massah and Meribah (ie., judgment and trial-place), that is, to Kadesh, as the place spoken of.  But the legislation at the seat of judgment at Kadesh is not represented as a single act in which Moses promulgates to the Israelites once for all a complete and comprehensive body of laws; it goes on for forty years, and consists in the dispensation of justice at the sanctuary, which he begins and the priests and judges carry on after him according to the pattern he set.  This is the idea in the extremely instructive narrative in Exodus xviii., of which Kadesh is the scene.  And in this way the Torah has its place in the historical narrative, not in virtue of its matter as the contents of a code, but from its form as constituting the professional activity of Moses.  It is in the history not as a result, as the sum of the laws and usages binding on Israel, but as a process; it is shown how it originated, how the foundation was laid for the living institution of that Torah which still exists and is in force in Israel.

The true and original significance of Sinai is quite independent of the legislation.  It was the seat of the Deity, the sacred mountain, doubtless not only for the Israelites, but generally for all the Hebrew and Cainite (Kenite) tribes of the surrounding region.  The priesthood of Moses and his successors was derived from the priesthood there:  there Jehovah appeared to him in the burning bush when he was keeping the sheep of the priest of Midian, from there He sent him to Egypt.  There, to the Israelites, Jehovah still dwelt long after they had settled in Palestine; in the song of Deborah He is summoned to come from Sinai to succour His oppressed people and to place Himself at the head of His warriors.  According to the view of the poet of Deuteronomy xxxiii. the Israelites did not go to Jehovah to Sinai, but the converse; He came to them from Sinai to Kadesh:  “Jehovah came from Sinai and shone from Seir unto them; He lightened from Mount Paran and came to Meribath Kadesh.” 1

************************************** 1.  We do not know where Sinai was situated, and the Bible is scarcely at one on the subject.  Only dilettanti care much for controversy on the matter.  The Midian of Exodus ii. tells us most:  it is probably Madian on the Arabic shore of the Ked sea.  In our passage Sinai seems to be S.E. of Edom; the way from Sinai to Kadesh is by Seir and Paran. ******************************************

But it is not difficult to see how it came to be thought more seemly that the Israelites should undertake the journey to Jehovah.  This was at first put in the form that they appeared there before the face of Jehovah to worship Him and offer Him a sacrifice (Exodus iii. 12), and at their departure they received the ark instead of Jehovah Himself, who continued to dwell on Sinai (Exodus xxxiii.); for the ark represents Jehovah, that constitutes its significance, and not the tables of the law, which were not in it at first.