On important occasions the congregation of the people was assembled before the door of the taber nacle. One memorable instance of this is recorded (Lev. viii.), on the occasion of the consecration ol Aaron and his sons to the priestly office. This has of late been brought into special prominence from its being made the ground of an objection to the authenticity of the Pentateuch. The utter impossibility of so placing 600,000 people before the door of the tabernacle as that they should see the ceremonial of the consecration, shows, it has been alleged, that this record is unhistorical and untrustworthy. To give force to this objection it is asserted that, had this mass of people been placed before the door of the tabernacle, they would have formed a column nearly zo miles in length (Colenso, The Pentateuch, etc., examined, ch. vi.) Now it must strike one that, had the writer of Leviticus gravely made a statement involving such an ab surdity as this, he must not only have been a very unfaithful historian, but a man not much above the level of a fool ; nor can it fail to appear strange that successive generations, Jew and Christian, should have been studying this book without detecting or suspecting an absurdity so manifest as this. But waiving this, let us see whether the statement of the historian may not be so understood as to exempt it from such an outrageous violation of common-sense as has thus been imputed to it.
Moses says that all the congregation' was to be convened before the door of the tabernacle. Does this necessarily mean that every adult male must be present there? If we look to the usage of the same expression elserhere, we shall be led to conclude that it is not so. From a comparison of passages, it appears that commands to convene the whole congregation of Israel v,,ere regarded as fulfilled by the assembling of the elders or princes of the congregation ; comp. Exod. 75 and 76 ; xii. 3 and 28 ; xix. 7 and 8 ; xxviii. 19, with Deut. v. 23, 24 ; Deut. xxxi. 28 and 302 etc. The admirable org,anisation of the host of Israel facilitated their acting by means of a representative body composed of the head men of the tribes and families; and it probably no more occurred to an ancient Jew in reading such statements as that we are considering to suppose that every adult male was present, than it occurs to an Englishman of the present day when he reads that the British nation has done this or that, to imagine that the , writer asserts that all the adult males of the United Kingdom were assembled in mass, and consented to the deed recorded. There is an old maxim with which our representative system has made us all familiar, Quod facit per alium facit per se ;' and as the Jewish people were even more perfectly represented than we are, the idea of the whole congregation being present in and acting through their chiefs would be one so perfectly familiar to them that they would at once apply it to remove any such difficulty as the statement of the historian here is supposed to present (Historical Character of the Pentateuch Vindicated, by a Layman, p. to8).
If this way of explaining the historian's state ment be refused, there is still a possibility of show ing that that statement may be taken literally with out involving such consequences as Bishop Colenso has suggested. The tabernacle would doubtless be pitched on some spot preferable for this purpose [that of allowing the people to witness the ceremony], or in front of a gentle acclivity. The hangings in the front of the court, and part of those on each side, would be withdrawn and folded toward the pillars, so that the altar of burnt-offering would be full in view. If the people, then, were disposed in a circular section, one third of a complete circle, or as far as 6o° on each side of the front line, and densely packed with four square feet to each pet son, we should have r r2=2,400,000, and r= 7574, or the furthest would be 505 yards from the altar, a distance of little more than a quarter of a mile. Even allowing four times the space, the furthest would only be a thousand yards distant, and from higher ground might easily follow the outline of the ceremonial' (Birks, The EXOdla p. HI). Even on the assumption, then, that all the adults were assembled, them is nothing incredible in the statement that they stood in the front of the tabernacle and saw the ceremony.
During the conquest of Caanan the tabernacle, at first moved from place to place (Josh. iv. 79 ; viii. 30.35 ; ix. 6 ; x. 75), was finally located at Shiloh (Josh. ix. 27 ; xviii. 7). Here it remained during the thne of the Judges till it was captured by the Philistines, who carried off the sacred ark of the covenant (7 Sam. iv. 22). From this time forward the glory of the tabernacle was gone. When the ark was recovered, it was no longer placed in the tabernacle ; though the latter still seems to have been regarded with veneration by the people, and to have retained the services of the priests (comp. 7 Sam. xxi. 7-6 ; icxviii. 4-6 ; Chron. xvi. 73). Even after the ark was removed to Jerusalem and placed in a new tabernacle the old structure still had its hold on the veneration of the community, and the old altar still received their offerings (7 Chron. xvi. 39 ; xxi. 29). It was not till the temple was built, and a fitting house.thus prepared for the Lord, that the ancient tabernacle was allowed to_perish and be forgotten.