After this proceeding, Moses with the elders ascended the mount, where, after an extraordinary personal manifestation of Jehovah, the Elohe of Israel, the ceremonial law was prescribed. Nearly forty days having elapsed, the people, impatient at Moses' absence, instigated Aaron to make them a molten image--a golden calf. This being done under pretense that the image represented Jehovah, "they said, This is thy Elohe, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt." Aaron built an altar before it, and appointed "a feast to Jehovah; and upon the altar they offered burnt offerings and peace offerings." Exod. xxxii. For this audacious treason and unbelief, about three thousand men were slain: soon after which, Jehovah made a covenant with the people, promising to drive out the Canaanites before them, and renewedly enjoining them to break their images and destroy their altars and groves. Chap. xxxiv. The tabernacle having been erected and offerings made according to the ritual, "There came a fire out from before Jehovah, and consumed upon the altar the burnt offering, ... which when all the people saw, they shouted and fell on their faces." Leviticus ix. On this occasion two of the priests, Nadab and Abihu, sons of Aaron, in the spirit of the Egyptian idolatry, burnt incense with strange fire, _i. e._, such as idolaters used: "And there went out fire from Jehovah and devoured them, and they died before Jehovah." Levit. x. The constant recurrence of reproof, instruction and prediction, in the historical and Prophetic writings of the Old Testament, proceeds from the nature of that dispensation, the conduct of the people under it, and the manner of its final consummation. The dispensation was one of outward and visible manifestation, discipline, trial, prefiguration and hope; disobedience under it was acted out visibly in idolatry and all practical abominations. Reproofs were uttered according to actual circumstances, having respect to present actual wickedness. A leading feature of that dispensation was that of the personal, local, visible appearances and interpositions of the Mediator. The tendencies and results of the dispensation were thwarted and delayed by the idolatry and wickedness of the people. The predictions, founded in the nature and design of that visible economy, looked forward to the circumstances, agencies and results which were to fulfil, complete and vindicate the nature and original design of the economy.