annually accompanied the 'ambassadors' to Palestine. Similarly, Asia Minor, which at

one time contributed nearly 8,000 pounds a year, had its central collecting places. In the

Temple these moneys were emptied into three large chests, which were opened with

certain formalities at each of the three great feasts. According to tradition these three

chests held three seahs each (the seah = 1 peck 1 pint), so that on the three occasions of

their openin g twenty-seven seahs of coin were taken.

The Temple revenues were in the first place devoted to the purchase of all public

sacrifices, that is, those offered in the name of the whole congregation of Israel, such as

the morning and evening sacrifices, the festive sacrifices, etc. This payment had been

one of the points in controversy between the Pharisees and the Sadducees. So great

importance was attached to it, that all Israel should appear represented in the purchase

of the public sacrifices, that when the three chests were emptied they took expressly

from one 'for the land of Israel,' from another 'for the neighbouring lands' (that is, for the

Jews there resident), and from the third 'for distant lands.' Besides, the Temple treasury

defrayed all else necessary for the services of the sanctuary; all Temple repairs, and the

salaries of a large staff of regular officials, such as those who prepared the shewbread

and the incense; who saw to the correctness of the copies of the law used in the

synagogues; who examined into the Levitical fitness of sacrifices; who instructed the

priests in their various duties; who made the curtains, etc.,--not omitting, according to

their own testimony, the fees of the Rabbis. And after all this lavish expenditure there

was not only enough to pay for the repairs of the city-walls, the roads, and public

buildings, etc., about Jerusalem, but sufficient to accumulate immense wealth in the

To the wealth and splendour of the Temple corresponded the character of its services.

The most important of these, next to the sacrificial rites, was the hymnody of the

sanctuary. We can conceive what it must have been in the days of David and of

Solomon. But even in New Testament times it was such that St. John could find no more

adequate imagery to portray heavenly realities and the final triumph of the Church than

that taken from the service of praise in the Temple. Thus, when first 'the twenty-four

elders,' representing the chiefs of the t enty-four courses of the priesthood, and

w

afterwards the 144,000, representing redeemed Israel in its fulness (12 x 12,000), sing 'the

new song'--the former in heaven, the latter on Mount Zion--they appear, just as in the

Temple services, as 'harpers, harping with their harps' (Rev 5:8; 14:2,3). Possibly there

may also be an analogy between the time when these 'harpers' are introduced and the

period in the Temple -service when the music began--just as the joyous drink-offering

was poured out. There is yet a third reference in the Book of Revelation to 'the harps of

God' (Rev 15:2), with most pointed allusion, not to the ordinary, but to the Sabbath

services in the Temple. In this case 'the harpers' are all they 'that had gotten the victory

over the beast.' The Church, which has come out of great tribulation, stands victorious

'on the sea of glass'; and the saints, 'having the harps of God,' sing 'the song of Moses,

the servant of God.' It is the Sabbath of the Church; and as on the Sabbath, besides the

psalm for the day (Psalm 92) at the ordinary sacrifice, they sung at the additional

Sabbatic sacrifice (Num 28:9,10), in the morning, the Song of Moses, in Deuteronomy 32,

and in the evening that in Exodus 15, so the victorious Church celebrates her true

Sabbath or rest by singing this same 'Song of Moses and of the Lamb,' only in language

that expresses the fullest meaning of the Sabbath songs in the Temple.