while camped on the plains of Moab). The exodus generation arrives by Exodus 18:5 and does not set out again until Numbers 10:11. The intervening five dozen chapters cover only a small splinter of time: barely eleven months. The nation of Israel is formally founded and the law given (Exod. 19–24), and we hear all too soon of their idolatrous rebellion with the golden calf and the renewal of the covenant (Exod. 32–34). Apart from related explorations of the law (esp. Lev. 17–27) more than three dozen