4 And Moses e wrote all the words | under the hill, and twelve fpillars of the LORD, and rose up early in according to the twelve tribes of the morning, and builded an altar

e Deut. 31.9.

Israel.

f Gen. 28. 18. & 31. 45.

history of the chosen race we find instances of the same sanguine promptitude in making vows and promises, followed, alas, but too speedily by the grossest acts of defection and rebellion; which led one of the ancient fathers to compare the Israelites to locusts, 'Subito saltus dantes, et protinus ad terram cadentes,' suddenly giving an upward spring, and forthwith falling upon the

to the divine injunction, v. 1, and in company with Aaron and his sons and the elders. His first business was to set before the people the body of laws, moral, civil, and ceremonial, which had been delivered from Mount Sinai, together with the promises of special blessings to be secured to them on condition of obedience. This was in fact proposing to them the terms of a national covenant, which was to be rati-earth again. The figure is but too fair an fied with very solemn ceremonies, and illustration of the halting obedience of enforced with solemn sanctions. To the best of God's children in this world. this covenant the people, it appears, were prompt to give their unanimous and cheerful consent, saying, 'All the words which the Lord hath said will we do.' They had before, ch. 19. 8, consented in general to come under God's government; here they consent in particular to those laws now given. The Most High might, indeed, in virtue of his sovereign authority, have enjoined his laws upon the nation without the formality of any stipulation on their part to obey them, but he condescended to give the whole affair the form of a covenant transaction, as something more calculated to win upon the generous sentiments of their hearts, and to draw forth a more affectionate obedience, than a code of precepts enjoined upon them by simple authority and appealing sternly to a bare sense of duty. God loves to endear his requisitions to the hearts of his creatures. But notwithstanding the readiness of the people thus to assume, without reservation or exception, the responsibilities of the covenant, it was no doubt done with a certain degree of precipitation and rashness, without being aware of their innate impotency to live up to the full extent of the obligations which they hereby incurred. On other occasions in the

4. And Moses wrote, &c. Although it must have occupied a considerable part of the day, and perhaps of the night also, yet in a transaction of this solemn nature it was evidently proper that the articles of the covenant about to be entered into should be reduced to writing, that there might be no mistake, and that it might be transmitted to posterity, who are equally to come under its obligations. The fact that God himself had previously written the words of the Decalogue on tables of stone does not necessarily militate with the supposition that Moses now made a record of them in writing, to be read in the audience of the people. These tables he had not yet received. It was only when he came down from the mount, after the golden calf was erected in the camp, that he brought with him these divinely written records.T Builded an altar under the hill and

twelve pillars; the altar as a representative of God, as the first and principal party to this covenant; and the twelve pillars as the representatives of the twelve tribes of the people as the other party. Between these two covenanting parties Moses acted as real and typical mediator. Gr. 'He built an altar under the mountain, και δωδεκα λίθους εις τας

δωδεκα φυλας του Ισραηλ, and tuelve | the cross, expiating then the sins of stones for the twelve tribes of Israel; as if each of the pillars consisted of a single stone, which we incline to believe was the fact; but it is not certain; they may have consisted of heaps of stones.

9 ¶ Then I went up Moses, and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel.

1 ver. 1.

Compare with this Heb. 9.

Took the book of the cove

have been substantially the following; whom his lord when he cometh shall 'As the body of this victim is cloven find so doing. Of a truth I say unto asunder, as the blood of this animal is you, That he will make him ruler over poured out, so let my body be divided all that he hath. But and if that serv. and my blood shed, if I prove unfaith- ant say in his heart, My lord delayeth ful and perfidious.' Under a stipula- his coming; and shall begin to beat the tion of this fearful import, the people men-servants, and maidens, and to eat consent to the conditions of the com- and drink, and to be drunken; the lord pact, and again declare their purpose to of that servant will come in a day when abide steadfastly by the divine require- he looketh not for him, and at an hour ments. Upon this Moses took the when he is not aware, and will cut him other basin of blood, and sprinkled its in sunder, and will appoint him his contents on the people ;' i. e. either on portion with the unbelievers.' This the twelve pillars which stood as the 'cutting asunder' alludes to the virtual representatives of the people, or upon a imprecation of every one who entered portion of the elders of the congrega- into covenant over the divided members tion in the name of the whole body. of the victim slaughtered on such ocAs the sprinklings and purifyings under casions. the law were usually performed with | 19, 20.water, scarlet wool, and hyssop, Lev. 14. 6. 7, such also, as we learn from the apostle, Heb. 9. 19, was the case in the present, instance. The application of the blood was the seal of the cove nant, giving to the whole transaction its crowning and binding sanction. It is, accordingly, with the most solemn emphasis that Moses adds, 'Behold the blood of the covenant, which the Lord hath made with you concerning all these words;' i. e. the blood by the shedding of which the covenant is ratified and confirmed. In like manner our Savior, in instituting that ordinance which was to be a perpetual seal of the new covenant of grace, said to his disciples, This is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.' And it should not be forgotten, that all those who adjoin themselves to the Lord in this sacred ordinance have the guilt of blood resting upon them if they prove unfaithful, and that the Savior probably alludes to the understood penalty of this kind of covenant-breaking, when he says, Luke, 12. 43-46, 'Blessed is that servant, VOL. II. 6

nant, and read, &c. In order that the people might be completely aware of what they were about to undertake, though they had been told before, he took the book, and read from it all that he had there written. He read it that they might be sure that what was contained in it, and what they were going, as it were, to sign, was the same as he had previously spoken to them, and they had promised to observe. He read it that their memories might be refreshed, and their consent given with full knowlege and due deliberation.

9. Then went up Moses and Aaron, &c. The several preliminary ceremonies and services mentioned above having been completed, Moses and his chosen attendants now make their ascent up the mountain, in obedience to the command before given, v. 1. From v. 13, it appears evident that Joshua constituted one of the company, though his name is not here mentioned. The omission may perhaps have been owing to the fact that he went not in a representative character, but simply as a personal attendant or minister to Mo

Still we do not insist on this inter

It will be observed that both in the sacred text, and in these several ver-pretation. It may be sufficient to say sions, there is a studied obscurity as this was a most resplendent display of to the form and aspect of the object the divine glory in that form in which whose resting or standing place is so the Shekinah usually appeared, only gorgeously described. Yet from a com- perhaps in a milder and more mitigated parison of this passage with the vision splendor; for it seems clear that its of Ezekiel, ch. 1, of which it is unques-usual aspect was that of an exceedingly tionably the germ, there is some rea- bright and dazzling effulgence, increas son to think it was an approximationing on some occasions to the intensity to the human form, as he says, that above the firmament that was over their heads, having the appearance of a sapphire stone, there was the likeness of a throne, and 'upon the likeness of the throne the likeness as the appearance of a man above upon it.' Even here, however, the description is so worded as to leave the image in the mind of the reader designedly vague and shadowy, lest a foundation should be laid for an idolatrous abuse of the symbolical scenery depicted. While, therefore, the idea of a distinct personal appearance in human form is excluded, yet we may perhaps safely conceive that the luminous and glorious object presented to their view bore a remote semblance of such a form; nor does it militate with this supposition that Moses says, in describing the phenomena of Sinai, 'ye saw no manner of similitude;' for this was spoken concerning the people in general, at the time of their receiving the law in an audible voice from the mount; but the words before us relate to a few individuals, and what they saw on a subsequent occasion. It is said of Moses, Num. 12. 8, the similitude of the Lord shall he behold,' and as this vision had a direct reference to Christ, who is 'the image of the invisible God,' and yet made in the likeness of corruptible man,' we seem to perceive an intrinsic probability in the idea of his appearing on this occasion, in at least a faint resemblance to that human form in which he was afterwards to manifest himself in accomplishing the work of redemption.

of a glowing and devouring flame. It is clear that the object seen could not have been God in the unveiled glory of his Godhead, for him no man hath seen nor can see. It must have been that sensible manifestation of the Deity which we have so frequently designated by the term Shekinah, and which we have endeavored to prove to be uniformly the Old Testament adumbration of Christ. It is unquestionably the same object as that mentioned by Isaiah, ch. 6. 1, 'In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, &c. ;' for it was only as manifested in the Shekinah that 'the Lord' (i. e. Jehovah) was ever seen under the old dispensation. It is the same object also as that described in the vision of Ezekiel, ch. 43. 1, 2, ‘Afterward he brought me to the gate, even the gate that looketh toward the east; and, behold, the glory of the God of Israel came from the way of the east ; and his voice was like the noise of many waters, and the earth shined with his glory.' The personage is evidently the same; it was the 'God of Israel,' whose theophany is described by both; and as Ezekiel is here prophetically setting forth the scenery of the New Jerusalem, we see no reason to doubt that the spectacle witnessed by Moses was the germ of that portrayed by Ezekiel, and that that depicted by John was merely a farther expansion of the same symbolical embryo. But leaving us to form our own ideas as to this part of the vision, the historian is more particular in describing the footstool upon