26
Education
What an industrial school was that in the wilderness, having for its
instructors Christ and His angels!
In the preparation of the sanctuary and in its furnishing, all the
people were to co-operate. There was labor for brain and hand. A great
variety of material was required, and all were invited to contribute as
their own hearts prompted.
Thus in labor and in giving they were taught to co-operate with
God and with one another. And they were to co-operate also in the
preparation of the spiritual building—God’s temple in the soul.
From the outset of the journey from Egypt, lessons had been given
for their training and discipline. Even before they left Egypt a tem-
porary organization had been effected, and the people were arranged
in companies, under appointed leaders. At Sinai the arrangements for
organization were completed. The order so strikingly displayed in all
the works of God was manifest in the Hebrew economy. God was the
center of authority and government. Moses, as His representative, was
to administer the laws in His name. Then came the council of seventy,
then the priests and the princes, under these “captains over thousands,
and captains over hundreds, and captains over fifties, and captains over
tens” (
Numbers 11:16, 17
;
Deuteronomy 1:15
), and, lastly, officers
appointed for special duties. The camp was arranged in exact order,
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the tabernacle, the abiding place of God, in the midst, and around it
the tents of the priests and the Levites. Outside of these each tribe
encamped beside its own standard.
Thoroughgoing sanitary regulations were enforced. These were
enjoined on the people, not only as necessary to health, but as the
condition of retaining among them the presence of the Holy One. By
divine authority Moses declared to them, “The Lord thy God walketh
in the midst of thy camp, to deliver thee; ... therefore shall thy camp
be holy.”
Deuteronomy 23:14
.
The education of the Israelites included all their habits of life.
Everything that concerned their well-being was the subject of divine
solicitude, and came within the province of divine law. Even in provid-
ing their food, God sought their highest good. The manna with which
He fed them in the wilderness was of a nature to promote physical,
mental, and moral strength. Though so many of them rebelled against
the restriction of their diet, and longed to return to the days when,
they said, “We sat by the fleshpots, and when we did eat bread to the