Archibald Robert Stirling Kennedy

“ This verdict is based not so much on the many difficulties presented by the narrative itself, or suggested by the unexpected wealth of material and artistic skill, as on the impossibility of reconciling the picture of the tabernacle and its worship, which is found in the middle books of the Pentateuch, with the religious history of Israel as reflected in the older historical books. There is absolutely no place for the tabernacle of the Priests' Code in the history of the worship of the Hebrews before the exile. ”

“ Within the latter stood, in solitary majesty, the ark of God, in which were deposited the two stone tables of the Decalogue or “ testimony.” On the ark lay a solid slab of the finest gold, the propitiatory or mercy-seat, from which rose the figures of two golden cherubim. ”

“ The tabernacle itself also stood east and west, with its entrance towards the east, on the edge of the second square. The essential part of the structure, to which everything else was subsidiary, was that termed in the original the mishkan, i.e. dwelling (Eng. Vers. tabernacle, but see Exod. xxv. 9, Rev. Vers. margin) . It was formed of ten curtains, in two sets of five, of the finest linen with inwoven coloured figures of cherubim, the whole making an artistic covering measuring 40 cubits by 28. ”