BIBLICAL LIBRARIES
is at least as early as JE or not far from David's time.
Apart from the conditions shown by the registers direct library references in this period are few, at least, Palestinian or Biblical. If it is true that Deuteronomy was found when the chest was opened for contributions because it was in the chest, it indicates that the old chest which was taken and had a hole cut in the lid for the purpose, was an old book-chest perhaps—one of the chests which the teaching priests carried about the country with them on their teaching tours. Certainly they carried some sort of portable book-chest of the general nature of the Ark or those carried in the Egyptian campaign. There seems just a chance that it may have been the sacred Ark itself which seems to have disappeared from view by this time. If so, this would point to a compartment in the side of the Ark, but one does not dare suggest this.
[126]
