done; what he commands is always our | place of their encampment and took its duty, yet every particular duty is not to be done at all times. Moreover, it must be perceived that in the negative mode of injunction, there is something more emphatic, and that leaves less room for evasion. Thus, had the first commandment, Thou shalt have no other gods, &c.,' been propounded affirmatively, 'Thou shalt worship one God,' the Samaritans, for instance, might still have contended that they kept this commandment, though they mixed the worship of other gods with that of the true.

On the whole, it is obvious that this momentous and immutable Law is framed with the utmost wisdom of its divine author, and that if its deep spirituality, its rigid and uncompromising demands, its perpetual authority, and its awful sanctions, were duly appreciated, it would awaken and keep alive every where the slumbering consciousness of sin, and at once lead to and endear the atonement of Christ, who was made a curse for us that he might redeem us from the curse of the violated Law.

position on the mountain. Here it assumed, in the first instance, a hue of dense and pitchy darkness, which would contrast more strongly with the fiery splendors that were ere long to burst out of its bosom, and together with the earthquake, and the thunder, and the trumpet-blast, to clothe the scene with a grandeur utterly unparalleled on earth. It is true, the Shekinah is here presented in aspect different from any in which we have yet contemplated it. We have hitherto beheld it in connexion with an audible voice-as a fire burning in but not consuming the bushy thicket - as an illuminated pillar of cloudbut no where else have we seen it with the accompaniment of thunders and lightnings and the voice of a trumpet, and all the fearful array of Mount Sinai. Still that this was an actual exhibition of the Shekinah the narrative leaves us no room to doubt. The ancient versions plainly confirm this view. Of these one of the Chaldee Targums renders the account in the 19th chapter;-'Moses led the people out of the camp to meet the Shekinah of Jehovah ;' another, 'to

5. Ministry of Angels in the Delivery meet the Word of the Lord;' and the

of the Law.

Arab, 'to meet the Angel of the Lord.' No attentive reader of the Scriptures Now it is to be recollected that we have can fail to have been struck with the previously shown that the visible Shefact, that in several passages, both of kinah is repeatedly termed the 'Angel the Old and New Testament, the pres- of the Lord,' and that this is the true ence and the agency of angels is ex- object which is to be brought before the pressly recognized on the occasion of the mind whenever in the books of Moses giving of the law. A somewhat extend- the title 'Angel of the Lord' occurs. ed and minute examination, therefore, The Shekinah was so called because of the circumstances attending this re- it was the ordinary medium or organ markable event will here be proper, in through which the Most High manifestorder to obtain, if possible, the true clue ed his presence and evinced his favor to the language employed by the sacred or disfavor towards the chosen people. writers in describing it. It will be Bearing this fact in mind, let us turn to evident, if we mistake not, from the Acts, 7. 37, 38, where in the speech of tenor of our annotations on the preced- Stephen it is said, "This is that Moses ing chapter, that the pillar of cloud, which said unto the children of Israel, the sublime Shekinah, which had hither- A Prophet shall the Lord your God raise to directed the journeyings of the Israel- up unto you of your brethren like unto ites, now removed itself from over theme: him shall ye hear. This is he that

remarkable device of the Ark of the Covenant, with its appurtenances of the Glory and the Cherubim was nothing but a sensible embodiment of this ancient and established idea, which had been familiar to the patriarchs from the earliest ages of the world. To this ideal host, though ultimately adumbrating men rather than any other order of be

signed the title of angels. That these angelic hosts should constitute a distinguishing part of the supernatural apparatus of the present scene would be a matter of course; and nothing would be more congruous to scriptural usage than to ascribe to them a special agency or execution on the occasion, from their being present, consenting, and cooperating with the divine Lawgiver. It is ascribed to them on the same grounds on which Paul affirms that the saints shall judge the world, by which at the same time nothing more is meant than that they shall be coinciding assessors with the great Judge himself. That this New Testament mode of speaking of the delivery of the Law is warranted by the usus loquendi of the Hebrew Scriptures will be evident from the following citations. Deut. 33. 2, The Lord came from Sinai, and rose up from Seir unto them; he shined forth from mount Paran, and he came with ten thousands of saints: from his right hand went a fiery law for them.' Here the 'ten thousands of saints' are ten thousands of holy ones or holy myriads (mëribboth

was in the church in the wilderness with the angel which spake to him in the Mount Sinai, and with our fathers; who received the lively oracles to give unto us.' Here it is evident that the 'Angel' mentioned is no other than he who was the great Speaker on the occasion of the delivery of the Law, and that this was Jehovah himself in his appropriate symbol of the cloudy pillar is, we think, indubitings, yet with entire propriety they asable. But here there is comparatively little difficulty, as the term 'Angel' is singular and refers plainly to a single personage. In the following passages however the term is plural, and the solution, not so directly obvious. Gal. 3. 19, 'It (the Law) was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator.' Again, Heb. 2. 2, 'For if the word spoken by angels was steadfast,' &c. No one can fail to see that in these passages the presence of angels is recognized as in some way connected with the sublimities and sanctities of the awful scene. It is not merely the one Angel of the Shekinah who is referred to, but there is a clear implication of the accompanying presence of a multitude of the heavenly hosts. How then is this to be understood? Moses in his narrative says nothing of such an angelic appendage to the scene, and it is an important enquiry whence such a usage of speech may be supposed to have originated. It will be seen from our Notes on Ex. 25. 18, that the Cherubim are properly to be regarded as a symbol of multitude; and ample proof may be adduced that a multitude of angelic attendants was al-kodesh),' and this is but another name ways supposed to accompany the Shekinah. From the very first introduction of these sacred symbols into the divine economy at the garden of Eden they were always viewed in this light, and though occasionally the visible Glory might appear when the accompanying multitudes did not, yet in the minds of the chosen people they were habitually associated with it and viewed as in fact involved in it. Indeed, the

for angels. Thus also Ps. 68. 7, 8—17, '0 God, when thou wentest forth before thy people, when thou didst march through the wilderness; The earth shook, the heavens also dropped at the presence of God: even Sinai itself was moved at the presence of God, the God of Israel. The chariots of God are twenty thousand, even thousands of angels: the Lord is among them, as in Sinai, in the holy place.' This, taken in its connexions, is

CHAPTER XX.

have brought thee out of the land

AND God spake all these words, of Egypt, out of the house of bon

saying,

2 b I am the LORD thy God, which a Deut. 5. 22. b Lev. 26. 1, 13. Deut. 5. 6. Ps. 81. 10. Hos. 13. 4.

dage.

c ch. 13. 3.

that in a time of tempest pour themselves out in gushing torrents. 'He rode upon: a cherub;' that is, collectively, upon the Cherubim, constituting the Cherubic vehicle above mentioned. Fi

On the whole, from a collation of the various passages now adduced, we cannot but think the phraseology of the Apostles in respect to the event in question is explicable in entire consistency with the Mosaic narrative; and it only adds another proof of the vast import ance of a correct view of the Shekinah to a right understanding of this and other portions of the Scriptures.

a very remarkable passage, and that it has an intimate relation to the subject before, is obvious at once. The original for chariots' (rekeb) is a collective singular forchariots,' and has an evident allusion to the same kind of sym-nally we may advert to the testimony of bolic scenery as that described in the vi- Philo (Lib. de Decalogo), who says that sion of Ezekiel, where the Living Crea-there were present at the giving of tures or Cherubim are represented as the Law voices; visible, animated, and forming a sort of animated chariot on splendid flames of fire; spirits (πvevwhich the Jehovah in the visible She- para); trumpets; and divine men runkinah was transported. The twenty ning hither and thither to publish the thousand chariots of God, therefore, is Law.' but another name for twenty thousand angels supposed to be present at the giving of the Law from Sinai, on which, as on a living throne, the Glory was supported. This reminds us at once of the parallel language of the 18th Psalm, which is penned in the highest style of sanctified poetic afflatus, and which no doubt refers to the very scene at Sinai now under consideration. For although David is the speaker, yet he speaks in the person of the Jewish church, whose historical fortunes from the beginning are depicted in the boldest imagery of inspiration; Ps. 18. 7-11, 'Then the earth shook and trembled; the foundations also of the hills moved and were shaken, because he was wroth. There went up a smoke out of his nostrils, and fire out of his mouth devoured: coals were kindled by it. He bowed the heavens also, and came down : and darkness was under his feet. And he rode upon a cherub and did fly: yea, he did fly upon the wings of the wind. He made darkness his secret place; his pavilion round about him were dark wa ters and thick clouds of the skies.' That is, such dark, lowering, gloomy clouds as are usually surcharged with waters

1. And God spake all these words. Heb. ¬¬¬ 33 kol høddebarim elleh. That is, the words or commandments following, called 'ten commandments ( debarim, words),' Ex. 34. 28. Deut. 4. 13, whence the title Decalogue, or ten words, and the voice of words,' Heb. 12. 19. That words' and 'precepts,' or 'commandments,' are equivalent in Scripture usage, is evident from the following passages; Deut. 18. 19, 'I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him. And it shall come to pass, that whosoever will not hearken unto my words which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him

PREFACE TO THE TEN COMMANDMENTS. 2. I am the Lord thy God, &c. Heb.

i. e. whosoever will not hearken unto, was spoken in an audible voice at all it my precepts. Gal. 5. 14, 'For all the must have been by God himself. law is fulfilled in one word;' i. e. in one commandment, viz. that thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. Est. 1. 12, 'But the queen Vashti refused to come at the king's commandment (Heb. Yehovah Elohëka, Jeho7 bidbar hammelek, at the vah thine Elohim. As these words conking's word).' Thus Mark, 7. 13, 'Mak- tain nothing of a preceptive nature, they ing the word of God of none effect;' are undoubtedly to be considered as a while Mat. 15. 6, 'Made the command- kind of preface to the ensuing Com ment of God of none effect.' It would mandments, embracing a declaration of not perhaps be easy, from the letter of the grounds on which their authority the present narrative, to establish con- rests. The Most High in proclaiming clusively the fact that these words his august name Jehovah, does thereby were spoken by the Most High in an most imperatively assert his claim to articulate voice; as it might be main- the obedience of all rational creatures tained that they were spoken to Moses, to whatever he should enjoin upon them. and by him, as mediator, communicated As 'Jehovah,' the self-existent, indeto the people. But upon comparing pendent, eternal fountain of all being, other passages where this event is he has of course the most absolute right spoken of, the evidence, we think, is to give law to the creatures he has too strong to be resisted, that in de- formed. Such a right flows by selflivering the Decalogue, God himself evident sequence from the very relation was the speaker. Thus, Deut. 5. 12, 13, of Creator and creature. He who gives 'And the Lord spake unto you out of being may give law; and no greater the midst of the fire: ye heard the voice extrinsic sanction can be conceived to of the words, but saw no similitude; any code of laws than the supremacy, only ye heard a voice. And he de sovereignty, majesty, preeminence, and clared unto you his covenant, which he power of the source from which it emacommanded you to perform, even ten nates; and all this is implied in the commandments; and he wrote them very name Jehovah.' It is, conseupon two tables of stone.' Again, in quently, a ground of obligation which ver. 32, 33, of the same chapter, the applies to the whole human race, as language forces upon us the same con- well as to the nation of Israel; but in clusion; 'For ask now of the days that the accompanying title 'thy God,' there are past, which were before thee, since is a virtual restriction which brings the day that God created man upon the home to the Israelites the import of the earth, and ask from the one side of declaration with an emphasis and force heaven unto the other, whether there which no other people could feel in the hath been any such thing as this great same degree. 'I am the Lord thy God, thing is; or hath been heard like it? which brought thee out of Egypt,' are Did ever people hear the voice of God words containing a motive to obedience speaking out of the midst of the fire, as peculiar to the seed of Jacob, and one thou hast heard, and live?' Add to this, of which they were justly expected to that it is by no means certain, from an feel the cogency. God was not only attentive survey of all the circum- their God as Creator, but theirs by covestances, that Moses was on the mount nant relation, and by the signal deliverduring the delivery of the Decalogue. ance wrought in their behalf. From It would seem then, that if the Law whom then might he look for obedi

3 d Thou shalt have no other gods | 4e Thou shalt not make unto thee before me. any graven image, or any likeness

is my God;' not our. Out of the 3. Thou shalt have no other gods be

לא יהיה לך אלהים .fore me. Heb מבית עבדים .house of bondage. Heb

mibbëth abadim, out of the house of lo yihyeh leka Eloslaves; i. e. out of the house where they him aharim al panai, there shall not be themselves were slaves, and not the Egyptians; for although we cannot doubt that a large part of the Egyptian population was in a very degraded state,