The transition is made more natural if we can suppose that the Priest of the Oracle, in the early days, was accustomed to put on the garment of the image, under the customary idea that thus the divine knowledge of the idol would be communicated to him. In 2 Kings xviii. 4, we read of _Nehushtan_, the brazen serpent which Moses had made, being used idolatrously; but perhaps this has been wrongly ascribed to Moses. From the intimate connection of bull-worship with the worship of Jehovah, it would seem that the bull was regarded as a symbol of Jehovah; a similar idea may have instituted Aaron's golden calf. While admitting the force of this evidence, we must still keep open the possibility that the religion instituted by Moses was of a purer type, but was never strong enough to drive out the remnants of heathen practice. More indisputable evidence of the materialistic conception of the Person of Jehovah is found in the reverence paid to what is known as "the ark of Jehovah," the making of which is certainly ascribed to Moses. The name "the ark of the covenant," was not the original name given to the ark, but is taken from the incident recorded in Deut. x. 1-5. The idea that the ark was built to contain the tables of the Law does not appear until the time of Deuteronomy, and is quite unknown to the older strata of the Pentateuch. In these older strata all mention of the actual making of the ark is omitted, although there is evidence that they did contain an account of its preparation and meaning. Enough, however, is told us of the reverential treatment of it, to show that it was a symbol of higher sanctity than a mere receptacle for the stones of the law would be likely to be. It is certainly very closely identified with Jehovah Himself, as may be seen from Num. x. 35. (This is in poetic form, and is therefore likely to be a very early fragment. It should be noticed that the ark apparently starts of itself.) Its presence in the battlefield ensures victory, while its absence brings about defeat (Num. xiv. 42-45; 1 Sam. iv. 3-7; v. 1 ff.). It can hardly be that the ark was taken for Jehovah Himself, but it must have contained something that was closely identified with Jehovah; a box is not built except with the idea of holding something. We have seen that it is unlikely that that something was originally the two tables of the law; was it something else of stone which made the transference to the tables of the law at once necessary and natural? Was it a stone image of Jehovah? It has been conjectured that it may have contained meteoritic stones, which would agree with the proposed derivation of "Jehovah" from the Storm God of Sinai. There is nothing in the Old Testament which gives any support to these conjectures, but in face of the fact that the original narrative of the making of the ark has been omitted, and in view of the ideas of religion which were common in that period, we cannot say that they are absolutely excluded from consideration.