: them' (Exod. xxv. 1-8). In this passage the various substances required for the service of the tabernacle are arranged in the following order :1. metals; 2. wool, hair, and flax; 3. leather; 4. wood; 5. oils and spices; 6. precious stones. This arrangement is perfectly lucid and commodious we therefore at once adopt it. : There are many tombs in Egypt coeval with or earlier than the Exodus, having paintings on their walls representing the arts of working these substances. The Israelites had been 430 years in Egypt at the time of their departure; having passed more than one-half of this period in the condition of household slaves, by whom, exclusively, all the operations of the mechanical arts were performed in Egypt. They would, therefore, be compelled to acquire skill in them, for the benefit of their masters, in the manner in which they practised them : so that, most probably, the pictures in these tombs illustrate, with entire fidelity, the mode in which the arts were applied by the builders of the tabernacle in the wilderness. The uses to which the metals were to be put in the service of the sanctuary would have taxed the skill of smiths of any age; so that the existence of great proficiency in the arts of metallurgy among the Israelites is implied in the inspired account of its construction. The ark, which was made of wood, was to be overlaid (7) with gold, and to have a crown, or raised and richly-wrought border (), round about it (Exod. xxv. 10-14). The table for the shewbread (ver. 23-28) and the altar of incense (xxx. 1–6) were to be made after the same fashion. The staves, also, by which all these vessels were carried, were to be covered with plates of gold, and attached to them by means of rings, cast solid, of the same precious metal (ver. 12, 26, &c.). The golden cherubim, which overshadowed the mercy-seat on the ark, were of beaten work T (ver. 18). This was also the case with the candlestick, its branches, its ornaments, its lamps, and its other instruments (ver. 31-39). מקשה "There can be no doubt that these several processes of overlaying, casting, and beating with the hammer, were executed with great skill and dex |