The authority which his antecedents had secured for him
made him as matter of course the great national "Kadhi" in the
wilderness. Equally as matter of course did he exercise his
judicial functions, neither in his own interest nor in his own
name, but in the interest of the whole community and in the name
of Jehovah. By connecting them with the sanctuary of Jehovah,
which stood at the well of Kadesh, he made these functions
independent of his person, and thus he laid a firm basis for a
consuetudinary law and became the originator of the Torah in
Israel. In doing this he succeeded in inspiring the national
being with that which was the very life of his own soul; through
the Torah he gave a definite positive expression to their sense
of nationality and their idea of God. Jehovah was not merely
the God of Israel; as such he was the God at once of law and
of justice, the basis, the informing principle, and the implied
postulate of their national consciousness.
The relationship was carried on in precisely the same manner as
that in which it had been begun. It was most especially in the
graver moments of its history that Israel awoke to full
consciousness of itself and of Jehovah.
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