vah spoke to Samuel. 1 Sam. iii. See also Joshua vii. 6; 1 Chron. xxi. 30; 2 Sam. xxii. 7; Psalm xviii. 6; xxvii. 4; Isaiah lxvi. 6.

Now, the tabernacle was erected expressly to be the dwelling-place of Jehovah as Mediator. "Let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them." Exod. xxv. 28. 28. " "Thou shalt put the mercy-seat above upon the ark; and in the ark thou shall put the testimony that I shall give thee. And there I will meet with thee, and I will commune with thee from above the mercy-seat, from between the two cherubim which are upon the ark of the testimony, of all things which I will give thee in commandment unto the children of Israel." xxv. 21, 22. "There I will meet with the children of Israel, and the tabernacle shall be sanctified by my glory.

And I will dwell among the children of Israel, and will be their God, and they shall know that I am Jehovah their Elohe, that brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, that I may dwell among them." xxix. 43, 45, 46. The tabernacle in the wilderness had its station in the midst of the camps; from the precincts of which all lepers were to be excluded, "that they defile not their camps in the midst whereof I dwell." Numb. v. 3. So no satisfaction might be taken for the life of a murderer in the land of Canaan; for blood defiled the land, and it could not be cleansed "but by the blood of him that shed it. Defile not therefore the land which ye shall inhabit, wherein I dwell: for I Jehovah dwell among the children of Israel." Numb. xxxv. 34. Accordingly we read that "the glory of Jehovah filled the tabernacle. . . . The cloud of Jehovah was upon the tabernacle by day, and fire was on it by night, in the sight of all the house of Israel throughout all their journeys." Exod. xl. 34, 38.

All this phraseology plainly indicates the local presence of the Personal Word; as plainly as the records of his visible presence on any occasions. Various other scriptures confirm this. When king David said to Nathan, "See now, Idwell in an house of cedar, but the ark of God dwelleth within curtains," Nathan was directed to "Go and tell David, Thus saith Jehovah, Shalt thou build me an house to dwell in? Whereas I have not dwelt in any house since the time that I brought up the children of Israel out of Egypt, even to this day; but have walked in a tent and in a tabernacle." To this follow allusions to his dealings with David, and promises concerning the future. "Then went king David in [i.e.into the tabernacle] and sat before Jehovah, . . . and made acknowledgments, thanksgivings, and prayers to Jehovah Zebaoth, the Elohe of Israel." 2 Sam. vii.

It is thus manifest that the tabernacle was intended as the residence of the official Person, and with reference to his official works; and being a figure of his human nature, he dwelt in it, and exercised his prophetic, regal, and priestly offices in it, as he was to do afterwards when literally incarnate. If it represented his human nature, then doubtless he dwelt in it; and if he dwelt in it in any sense answerable to his subsequent dwelling in the human nature, then he dwelt in it locally and personally. The services performed there accordingly imply and confirm this view. There was a shedding of blood, the blood of the covenant, which has flowed in every age, through which remission of sin was granted. See Levit. xvii. 2; Heb. ix. 22.

No atonement could be made but by sacrificial bloodshedding; and if the shedding and sprinkling of blood in the tabernacle service prefigured the true atonement, then it referred to the incarnate Word; and if he was

in any manner in the holy place, he must have dwelt there in the person and likeness in which he appeared when visible. If any Divine Person was present in the tabernacle, it must have been the Mediator in his official capacity. For to suppose it to have been the Father, is to suppose that in the Levitical services there was in the minds of the worshippers no recognition of the Mediator.

Accordingly, when he visibly appeared incarnate among men, he spoke of the temple as representing his body. "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. . . . But he spake of the temple of his body." John ii. 19, 21. And John, describing the Messiah as he appeared visibly incarnate, says the WORD was God— was in the beginning-created all things. "The WORD became flesh and dwelt [literally, tabernacled] among us, and we beheld his glory." John i. See also the Epistle to the Hebrews, especially chap. viii.-x., where the Mosaic tabernacle of witness, as it is called in Numbers and Acts vii., is in all its essential characteristics and objects contrasted with the person and office-work of Christ as he appeared incarnate,-"a minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle, [his human nature,] which the Lord pitched and not man,"-in fulfilment of the things signified and prefigured in the tabernacle of witness, "which was a figure for the time then present." "But Christ being come, . . . by a greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, . by his own blood entered once into the holy place, [heaven as prefigured by the holy of holies within the veil,] having obtained eternal redemption for us;" i. e., by the offering of his own blood as an atoning sacrifice for sin, as prefigured by the sacrificial shedding of blood in the Levitical service and the patriarchal worship. "He entered not, when he offered himself a sacrifice, into the

holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true, but into heaven itself. Nor yet did he offer himself often, as the high priest entered into the holy place every year with blood of others, but now once at the end of the Levitical economy, he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself." After he had once offered himself a sacrifice for sin, he ascended, and "sat down on the right hand of God, thenceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool. For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified. Whereof the Holy Ghost also is a witness to us: for after that he had said, This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them; and their sins and iniquities will I remember no more. Now where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin. Having therefore boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living [life-giving] way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh; and having an High Priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith.”

The foregoing observations and references show, in some degree, how Moses and his inspired successors wrote of the Messiah.

CHAPTER XIII.

Of the Chaldee Paraphrasts-Their method of designating the Personal WORD or Revealer-Occasion and Necessity of it.

HE who, in the primeval dispensation, was, in his official character, distinctively announced as the Messenger Jehovah, and the Messenger Elohim, is, in the same character, no less distinctively announced, on his visible appearance incarnate, as the Word. And, taking the words, John i. 1, last clause, in the order in which they occur in the original, "God (Elohim) was the Word," He, in that character, is declared to be the Creator. "All things were made by him." "By him" referred to as the Son, and as the image of the invisible God, in whom we have redemption through his blood— "were all things created, that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible." Col. i. These

designations and ascriptions undoubtedly identify him in respect to his person, and his official character, with Elohim, who (Gen. i.) in the beginning created the heavens and the earth.

But the designation translated Word-a term employed in the abstract for the concrete, as light for the enlightener, life for life-giver, Logos, or Word, for revealer-has a counterpart, of like personal and official significance, in the Hebrew Scriptures, which was recognized by the ancient Jewish church, and by the Chaldee paraphrasts; and which, in a Chaldee form, the latter in their paraphrases inserted in numerous instances before the Divine names, where they understood them to