As to the accounts given in the two sources of the crossing of the Red Sea, all we can say is that that of the Jehovist (J) is the more complicated.  According to him the sea is dried up by a strong wind, and the Egyptians succeed at first in crossing it, and encounter the Hebrews on the eastern shore during he night.  “But in the morning watch Jehovah turned, in the pillar of fire and of the cloud, against the host of the Egyptian, and overthrew the host of the Egyptian, and hindered the wheels of his chariot and caused him to drive heavily.  Then the Egyptian said:  I will flee before Israel, for Jehovah fighteth for them against Egypt.  But the sea turned back towards morning to its ordinary level, and the Egyptians fled against it, and Jehovah shook them into the midst of the sea” (Exodus xiv. 24, 25, 27).  According to the Priestly Code 1 the waves meet over the pursuers,

************************************** 1.  And the younger tradition generally:  also according to the song Exodus xv., which apart from the beginning, which is old, is a psalm in the manner of the Psalms and has no similarity with the historical songs, Judges v., 2Samuel i., Numbers xxi. *************************************

before they reach the further shore; the idea is much simpler, but poorer in incidental features.

The miracle of the manna (Exodus xvi.) is taken advantage of in the Priestly Code as a very suitable occasion for urging on the people a strict sanctification of the Sabbath:  none falls on the seventh day, but what is gathered on the sixth keeps two days, while at other times it requires to be eaten quite fresh.  This pursuit of a legal object destroys the story and obscures its original meaning, as no one can help seeing.  Nor is it any sign of originality, rather of senility, that in the Priestly Code the manna is not eaten raw, but boiled and baked.

At Mount Sinai Moses receives, according to the Priestly Code, the revelation of—­the model of the tabernacle, and he follows the pattern thus presented to him in the construction, down below, of the real tabernacle.  All further revelation takes place, even in Moses’ time, as far as possible in the tabernacle (Exodus xxv. 22).  Even Sinai must not stand any longer than necessary by the side of the one legitimate seat of Deity. 1

****************************************** 1.  Compare, however, Jahrbb.fur Deutsche Theologie, 1877, p. 453, note 1. *******************************************

The tables of the law, it appears, are silently presupposed without being mentioned beforehand, it being of course assumed that the readers would know all about them from the old tradition.  The outside of the ark, however, is furnished in the most extravagant style, and with a splendour which other descriptions of the chest of acacia-wood are far from suggesting.  The ark in the Priestly Code differs indeed in every way from the appearance of it in 1Kings vii. 23 seq.