circumstances. The way of duty is the judicial and ceremonial precepts comway of safety. 25, 26. Thou shalt not offer the blood, &c. See Note on Ex. 23. 18.-12. 10.23. 19. Deut. 26. 2. prised in the verses immediately preceding from v. 11th to v. 26th, which were an appendage to the moral law, and which formed, in all their details, the conditions of the national covenant on the part of the nation. But did Moses write them on the present occasion? This we think may justly be questioned. By recurrence to chap. 24. 3—8, we learn that when Moses came down from the mount he wrote out in a book the collection of laws and precepts, additional to the Decalogue, which form the contents of chapters 21, 22, and 23, and which include every one of the items recited in the present context. Now these laws were not inscribed on the tables which were broken; consequenty there was no occasion, on this score, for their being re-written; and if the book already written were preserv ed, was there any occasion for another copy of the precepts being made at all at this time? It is indeed possible that the short compend here recited may have been transcribed in pursuance of a direction now given to that effect, but on the whole we prefer to consider the verse as more correctly rendered in the pluperfect-'And the Lord had said unto Moses, Write thou these words,' &c. This refers the writing back to the occasion just mentioned, of which it is said, 'And Moses came and told the people all the words of the Lord, and all the judgments: and all the people answered with one voice, 27. And the Lord said unto Moses, Write thou these words, &c. There is some difficulty attending the exposition of this command to Moses respecting the writing the words of the covenant. It is clear from v. 1, of this chapter that God promised to write with his own hand the ten commandments on the tables prepared by Moses. The execution of this promise we conceive is expressly recorded in v. 28, 'And he (i. e. God) wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten command. ments.' The parallel narrative, Deut. 10. 1-4, puts this beyond question, 'At that time the Lord said unto me, Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first, and come up unto me into the mount, and make thee an ark of wood. And I will write on the tables the words that were in the first tables which thou brakest, and thou shalt put them in the ark. And I made an ark of shittim wood, and hewed two tables of stone like unto the first, and went up into the mount, having the two tables in my hand. And he wrote on the tables, according to the first writing the ten commandments, which the Lord spake unto you in the mount, out of the midst of the fire, in the day of the assembly: and the Lord gave them unto me.' What then were the words which Moses wrote? Certainly that summary of and said, All the words which the Lord 28 e And he was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights; he did neither eat bread nor drink e ch. 24. 18. Deut. 9. 9, 18. hath said will we do. And Moses wrote all the words of the Lord, and rose up early in the morning, and builded an altar under the hill, and twelve pillars according to the twelve tribes of Israel. And he took the book of the covenant, and read in the audience of the people; and they said, All that the Lord hath said will we do, and be obedient. And Moses took the blood, and sprinkled it on the people, and said, Behold the blood of the covenant, which the Lord hath made with you concerning all these words.' This construction removes, as far as we can perceive, all appearance of discrepancy between the different parts of the narrative. Having repeated the leading specifications of the compact formerly entered into, it was natural to advert to the fact, that Moses had been required to write them down at the time they were first delivered and formally accepted and ratified. If, however, it should still be thought probable that some kind of writing was now enjoined upon Moses, we are by no means disposed to join issue with such a conclusion. It is no doubt very supposable, that as they had in their recent transgression broken both the table-statutes and the book-statutes—the moral and the ceremonial part of the covenant -God may have seen fit, that the renewal of both these departments of the covenant should be marked by a similar proceeding. As he himself was pleased to restore by re-inscribing the Decalogue, so Moses may have been ordered to re-write on parchment the prominent points of the ceremonial law, as a token that both were again in force in their covenant relations. water. And fhe wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten commandments. f ver. 1. ch. 31. 18. & 32. 16. Deut. 4. 13. & 10. 2, 4. forty days and forty nights. Being of course miraculously sustained by the power of God without food or drink, as in the former case, ch. 24. 18. 'It was not long since Moses' former fast of forty days. When he then came down from the hill his first question was not for meat; and now going up again to Sinai, he takes not any repast with him. There is no life to that of faith. 'Man lives not by bread only.' The vision of God did not only satiate, but feast him. What a blessed satiety shall there be when we shall see him as he is, and he shall be all in all to us; since this very frail mortality of Moses was sustained and comforted but with rep. resentations of his presence! I see Moses, the receiver of the law, Elias, the restorer of the law, Christ, the fulfiller of the old law, and author of the new, all fasting forty days; and these three great fasters I find together glori ous in mount Tabor. Abstinence merits not, but it prepares for good duties. Hence solemn prayer takes ever fasting to attend it, and so much the rather speeds in heaven when it is so accompanied. It is good so to diet the body, that the soul may be fattened.' Hall. In Deut. 9. 18, this second sojourn is thus alluded to; 'And I fell down before the Lord, as at the first, forty days and forty nights: I did neither eat bread, nor drink water, because of all your sins which ye sinned, in doing wickedly in the sight of the Lord, to provoke him to anger.' If we enquire into the design of this second forty days' withdrawment and seclusion, the passage now cited seems to disclose one at least of the grand ends which were to be answered by it; viz., 28. And he was there with the Lord to convey to the people a deeper im Bp. pression of the guilt of their recent ini- | divine legate; for the endurance of so quitous proceedings. What must they long a fast evidently exceeded the pow. think of the heinousness of their con- ers of human nature. In order that the duct when a period of forty days' earn- majesty of the law might be unquesest intercession, on the part of Moses, tioned, its minister was distinguished accompanied by fasting and prayer, by an angelical glory. He expressly was none too much in which to depre- asserts of himself that he neither drank cate the deserved vengeance of heaven? water nor tasted of bread, that by beCould they ever after venture to deem ing thus distinguished from ordinary sin a light matter? Could they delude mortals his official dignity might be themselves with the idea that God was superior to exception. We are to unvery easily pacified in view of a high- derstand the fast, therefore, here menhanded transgression? Alas, how little tioned not as one of mere temperance aware are most men of the aggravated or sobriety, but of singular privilege, in nature of sins committed against coven- which a temporary immunity from the ant vows and engagements! It is on- infirmity of the flesh was granted, ly those who live very near to the light that his condition might be shown to of the throne, and gaze like Moses upon be super-human. He was unconscious the burning brightness of the divine of thirst, nor did he struggle any more purity that can appreciate it aright! with the appetite for food than one of They see the awful turpitude of rebel- the angels. Therefore this abstinence lion against God, and how difficult it is was never drawn into a precedent by to recover the lost tokens of his favor. any of the prophets, nor did any one This lesson was now to be taught to think of imitating what all knew was the sinning congregation, and nothing not intended for themselves. I except would do it more effectually than this the case of Elijah, who was sent to relong period of fasting and prayer. Again, new the law which had almost perished the same honor was to be secured for from Israel, and who, as a second Mo. the second tables as for the first, and ses, abstained from food and drink for though the thunders and lightnings that forty days.'-T And he wrote upon marked the first delivery of the law the tables, &c. That is, God wrote, as were not repeated, yet the forty days' is evident from the proof adduced under fasting of Moses was, and the tables the foregoing remarks, v. 27. 'Moses were to be brought forth, in that re- heard, and God wrote. Our true Moses spect, as at the first.' All the cir- repairs that law of God which we, in cumstances, in fine, were to be so or- our nature, had broken; he revives it dered that the deepest moral impression for us, and it is accepted of God, no should be produced upon the general less than if the first character of his law mind of the people. had been still entire. We can give nothing but the table; it is God that must write in it. Our hearts are but a bare board till God by his finger engrave his law in them. Yea, Lord, we are a rough quarry; hew thou us out, and square us fit for thee to write upon. Bp. Hall. The remarks of Calvin upon this passage are well worthy of being appended in the present connexion. 'Moses was exempted from the common lot of men that he might usher in a law evidently from heaven. Had he been detained but a few days upon the mount, his authority would not have been sanctioned by so illustrious a miracle. The forty days, therefore, thus spent gave a full attestation to his commission as a 29. And it came to pass when Moses came down, &c. Notwithstanding the slight air of confusion in the statement of this verse, the meaning of the writer 29 And it came to pass when he came down from the mount) Moses came down from mount that Moses wist not that h the skin Sinai (with the two tables of of his face shone, while he talked testimony in Moses' hand, when with him. g ch. 32. 15, is yet too obvious to be misunderstood. The time of Jehovah's 'talking with him' was indeed prior to his coming down from the mount, and it was then that his face began to shine; but he had not become conscious of the fact till after he had descended. The reason why his countenance shone now, and not when he came down the first time from the mount undoubtedly was, that during the second time he had been favored with far more glorious views of the divine character and perfections than before. The original for 'wist not that the skin of his face shone' is 77777 lo yada ki karan or panauv, were the verb karan signifies to irradiate, to shoot forth or emit rays of light; whence, from the idea of shooting forth, comes the noun keren, a horn. This fact throws an important light upon the wellknown passage in the sublime description of the Most High, Hab. 3. 3, 4, 'God came from Teman, and the Holy One from mount Paran. Selah. His glory covered the heavens, and the earth was full of his praise. And his brightness was as the light; he had horns coming out of his hands; and there was the hiding of his power.' It is not perhaps to be confidently affirmed that this rendering is erroneous, inasmuch as the original word is that which is usually and properly translated horns. Yet we think that scarcely any one can help being conscious of some slight incongruity in the imagery. The head, and not the hands, is the proper place for the outgrowth of horns. But suppose the term to be rendered 'rays,' and to have reference to the streaming or flashing splendors which emanated from the hands of the h Matt. 17. 2. 2 Cor. 3. 7. 13. personified glory of Jehovah, and the image is far more grand and impressive. Conceive the word, in fact, to be but another term for lightnings, and we see at once with what propriety it is added, 'And there was the hiding of his power.' What more striking emblem could be imagined of the resistless might of Omnipotence? Here too we are not improbably enabled to trace the origin of the ancient Greek mythologic device, which represents Jupiter, the father of the gods, as grasping the lightnings or thunderbolts in his right hand, as a symbol of his power over the elements. We suggest this, however, as rather probable than certain. Whatever may be thought of it, no doubt can remain as to the etymological affinity between 'rays' and 'horns,' and with this fact before us, we can easily account for the strange rendef. ing of the Lat. Vulgate; 'Ignorabat quod cornuta esset facies sua,' he knew not that his face was HORNED, which is evidently as improper as it would be to translate the word 'rayed' when ap. plied to an ox or a goat. Yet in accordance with this error, the Italian painters, who were unacquainted with any other version, have for the most part represented Moses with the uncouth appendage of horns! These pictures have been copied into engrav ings, and thus it is that in ancient biblical cuts we often see him thus depicted. This circumstance of 'rays' and 'horns' having a common radical has led moreover to a verbal as well as a pictorial confounding the two. Thus the eloquent Jeremy Taylor in his Holy Dying,' p. 17, describes the rising sun as 'peeping over the eastern hills, thrusting out his golden horns.' this could have happened, we feel but little interest to inquire. Calvin thinks it, not improbable, that the miraculous effulgence may have been restrained from bursting forth until Moses came into the immediate presence of Aaron and the people, that they might have an impressive view of the phenomenon. But however this may be, it is a theme of more profitable contemplation as viewed in its emblematical applica tions. "He wist not that the skin of his face shone;' nor is it ever found that those who bear much of the divine image are conscious of the moral glory which has passed upon them. Their minds are so fixed upon their own defects; they are so deeply convinced of the corruption of their nature; they are so profoundly penetrated with the sense of their ill desert, that so far from recognising any peculiar tokens of divine favor in themselves, they are rather prone to say with Job, 'If I had call. The Gr. version renders nearer to the sense of the original by dedošaoral, was glorified, or made glorious, whence the apostle, 2 Cor. 3. 7, says, 'The children of Israel could not steadfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory (dosa) of his countenance, i. e. the exceeding brightness. Chal. 'Moses knew not that the brightness of the glory of his face was multiplied.' Sir Thomas Brown, according to the Editor of the Pictorial Bible, is probably correct in his understanding of the matter, after Tremellius and Estius; "His face was radiant, and dispersing beams, like many horns or cones about his head; which is also consonant unto the original signification, and yet observed in the pieces (pictures) of our Savior and the Virgin Mary, who are commonly drawn with scintillations or radiant halos, about their head; which, after the French expression, are called, the Glory.' He remarks, moreover, that the custom among painters of put-ed, and he had answered me; yet would ting 'glories' around the heads of sacred persons no doubt arose from this fact concerning Moses. 'We are not aware,' says he, 'of any other authority, except that the raiment of Christ became shining at the transfiguration. The ancient heathen considered an irradiation or lambent flame about the head, as a manifestation of the divine favor and protection. But whether this arose from any tradition concerning Moses it is impossible to determine.' The notions of the Mohammedans on this subject, which are very curious, and which probably arose from a Scriptural source, may be seen detailed in my 'Life of Mohammed.'-T Wist not that the skin of his face shone. What was visible to others was hidden to himself. Although from the effects of his transforming communion with the divine presence he had become in a meas-through all his deportment. But to all ure 'changed into the same image, from glory to glory,' yet he remained in perfect unconsciousness of the fact! How I not believe that he had hearkened unto my voice.' Instead of realizing the possession of distinguished graces, they still count themselves as less than the least of all saints.' To others their spiritual excellencies shine forth with great lustre, but they are blind to them themselves; and the nearer they attain to the view of the divine glory; the more familiar their converse with infinite excellence, the more unconscious do they become of its effects upon them. Has one been recently on the mount in beatific fellowship with God, the evi dence of it will appear when he comes down. It will show itself in the heightened meekness and sweetness of his temper, in the sanctity of his demeanor, in the quickened zeal of his efforts to do good, and in the subdued, heavenly, and Christ-like spirit that breathes this he will be himself unconscious. 'Whatever beauty God puts upon us, we should still be filled with such an |