Tabernacle in the Wilderness 33 from what the critics call the Priestly Document, was built, among other purposes, for the housing of this sacred ark; and the same documentary evidence which establishes that fact establishes also the farther fact that for a long period such was really the case. That is to say, the sacred ark and the old Mosaic Tabernacle went together, according to Biblical history, down to the times of Shiloh; and they were, after some period of separation, even brought together again at the dedicatory services of Solomon’s Temple. To be sure, not all of this is admitted by the critics; but they cannot deny that the same old ark, which, according to Deut. 10.T-5, was built by Moses, was finally deposited in Solomon’s Temple.* With this much conceded, all the rest that we have claimed must necessarily follow; or, in other words, the admitted history of the Ark of Jehovah establishes also the historicity of the Mosaic Tabernacle, or at least helps to do so. IX. ENTIRE STORY OF THE TABERNACLE Now then we are prepared to give the entire story of that old structure which was built at Mt. Sinai; only one item being still lacking. This we can learn from 1 Sam., Chaps. 21 and 22, and it is, that for a brief period the Tabernacle seems to have been located at Nob, some distance south of Shiloh. With this item then supplied, our story may go forward. As vouched for by the different historic notices we have been con sidering, it is as follows: Built by the Israelites near Mt. Sinai, it was afterward carried by that people all through the wilderness. Then, having crossed the Jordan with them, and being set up at Shiloh, it seems for a long time to have remained in that *Wellhausen positively states that according to the Law, that is the Pnestly Document, the Tabernacle is “the inseparable companion of the ark, and that The two things necessarily belong to each other ” He also admits, on the ground of other Biblical evidence, that toward the end of the period of Judges there are distinct traces of the ark as existing; moreover that this same “ark of Jehovah” was finally de posited m Solomon’s Temple. (See Proleg., Eng. Trans., pp. 41, 42 )
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