8 And all the people answered | Lo, I come unto thee in a thick together, and said, All that the cloud, p that the people may hear LORD hath spoken we will do. And when I speak with thee, and a beMoses returned the words of the lieve thee forever. And Moses told people unto the LORD. the words of the people unto the 9 And the LORD said unto Moses, LORD. n ch. 24. 3, 7. Deut. 5. 27. & 26. 17. 8. And all the people answered to gether. Heb. 1yaanu yahdav. Gr. anɛkρion opoðvpadov, answered with one accord, as the term opo0vpadov is alsó rendered Acts, 2. 1, and often elsewhere, implying rather unanimity of counsel than simultaneousness of act. It is of course to be supposed that the elders made known the conditions to the people whom they represented, and that they unanimously signified their acceptance of them, which was again reported by Moses through their official heads. Their answer discovers indeed a commendable promptitude in acceding to the terms and availing themselves of the proffered blessings, but the sequel shows that their response was given in a spirit of overweening self-confidence. They knew comparatively little of their own spirits, and rushed precipitately into the assumption of obligations, of the full import of which they had but little idea. Their conduct strikingly illustrates that of the convinced sinner, who feels the pressure of the divine claims upon his conscience, and fondly imagines that he shall have no difficulty in keeping the whole law. But experience soon shows him his error, as it did the Israelites. 9. Lo, I come unto thee in a thick cloud. Heb. beab hanan, in the thickness, or density, of the cloud. Gr. Ev oruλw vεpeλns, in the pillar of the cloud. We know that God ordinarily resided among his people and presided over them in the cloudy pillar. But as this pillar changed its aspect to a pillar of fire by night, so we can easily over. 16. ch. 20. 21. & 24. 15, 16. Deut. 4. 11. Ps. 18. 11, 12. & 97. 2. Matt. 17. 5. P Deut. 4. 12, 36. John 12. 29, 30. 9 ch. 14. 31. imagine it to have assumed a denser and darker appearance on this occasion. As it was to be accompanied with lightnings and thunders, the whole scene would be rendered more sublime and awful by the increased darkness and density of that vast mass of cloud, tow ering above the summit of the mountain, which was to be the ground of these fearful phenomena. Our conceptions on this subject will be heightened by referring to the parallel language of the Psalmist, Ps. 18. 11, 'He made dark. ness his secret place; his pavilion round about him were dark waters and thick clouds of the skies ;' i. e. not literally waters in their elementary state, but such thick dark lowering clouds as are generally charged with water, and emp ty themselves in gushing torrents of rain; in allusion to which it is said, Job. 26. 8, 'He bindeth up the waters in his thick clouds, and the cloud is not rent under them. There was perhaps some reference in this mode of mani. festation to the comparatively dark and obscure genius of the Mosaic dispensa. tion. Of the ancient versions the Arab. renders this passage, 'I will manifest my Angel unto them in the thickness of clouds,' and the Jerus. Targ. 'My Word shall be revealed unto thee in the thick cloud. That the people may hear when I speak with thee, &c. This dis closes one grand purpose to be accom. plished by such an impressive mode of manifestation. The highest possible honor, and credence, and deference was to be secured to the person of Moses, in order that the laws and ordinances 10 ¶ And the LORD said unto Moses, Go unto the people, and r sanctify them to-day and to-morrow, and let them wash their clothes, r Lev. 11. 44, 45. Hebr. 10. 22. s ver. 14. Gen. 35. 2. Lev. 15. 5. 11 And be ready against the third day for the third day the LORD twill come down in the sight of all the people upon mount Sinai. t ver. 16, 18. ch. 34. 5. Deut. 33. 2. sons;' i. e. ordered them to sanctify themselves; the agent, according to Scripture usage, being said to do that which he orders or procures to be done. We see at once the propriety of their being fitted by a special preparation for such a solemn interview with the Most High as now awaited them. When but a friend or neighbor is expected somewhat formally to visit us, the natural sentiment of decorum requires that our persons, our houses, our entertainment, should be invested with an air of more than usual neatness, order, and style. How much more, when the visiter is to be no other than the King of Kings himself! They were about to approach which he was to introduce among the people in the name of God might be clothed with due authority. The grandeur and solemnity of the scene in which their leader was to act such a conspicuous part would eminently tend to produce this effect. And their hearing with their own ears the voice of God speaking to his servant, would utterly cut off all future pretext for saying that Moses palmed upon them a system of laws and statutes of his own devising, or imposed upon their credulity in any way whatever. In affirming this they would be witnesses against themselves. They had an ocular demonstration that the laws to which they were required to submit, were promulgated from the high-a holy God, a God of infinite purity, est authority in the universe, of which who cannot bear any unclean thing in Moses was merely the ministering me- his presence, and therefore they were diator. It was not, however, merely to take care that no defilement was upon from the men of that generation that them. They were to wash their clothes God would exact this profound defer- and preserve their persons free from all ence to the official character of Moses, impurity. They were even to abstain (v. but it was to be perpetuated in the line 15) from all such innocent and lawful of their posterity to the latest days gratifications as might be unfavorable 'that they may believe thee for ever,' to the utmost degree of spirituality and not only as long as they live, but as abstractedness of soul in the exercises long as their descendants shall live. before them. Not that there was any Accordingly our Savior himself recog- intrinsic virtue in mere external ablunises his authority, when he says in the tions and abstinences; they were to do parable of the rich man and Lazarus, this in token of their cleansing them"They have Moses and the prophets, let selves from all sinful pollutions. While them hear them,' and 'if they believe they were washing their clothes they not Moses and the prophets, neither will were to think of washing their souls by they believe, though one rose from the repentance from the sins which they dead.' had contracted. Comp. Gen. 35.2. Lev. | 15. 5. 10. Go unto the people and sanctify them, &c. That is, command and see that they sanctify themselves, as appears from the next clause, and from v. 14. In like manner it is said that Job (ch. 1.5.) Sent and sanctified his VOL. I 21 11. The third day the Lord will come down, &c. That is, will come down in the cloudy and fiery pillar, the symbol of his presence, the visible Shekinah; another of the innumerable instances in 12 And thou shalt set bounds unto the people round about, saying, Take heed to yourselves, that ye go not up into the mount, or touch the border of it: u whosoever toucheth the mount shall be surely put to death: u Hebr. 12. 20. which 'Lord' is used interchangeably with the term denoting his visible representative. His descent was to be in sight of all the people. We infer from this that the cloudy pillar rose to a great height in the heavens, for we be lieve there is no one of the several peaks of the Sinai group of mountains that could be seen from all the points where a body of two millions of men must have been encamped. Consequently, the pillar that surmounted the summit must have been very lofty. 12. Thou shalt set bounds, &c. Notwithstanding all the grandeurs and terrors of the scene, it was on the whole an illustrious instance of God's grace and condescension that he was pleased to vouchsafe to them such a signal display of himself on this occasion. Yet he would have them reminded of the humble awful reverence which should possess the minds of all those that worship him. Every semblance of unhallowed freedom and familiarity was to be studiously repressed. While Jehovah makes himself known as a Father, a Protector, a Guide, a Portion, he still would have his servants remember that he is 'the great and terrible God.' He therefore requires that they should worship him at a respectful and reverential distance, as being really unworthy even to lift up their eyes to the place which his footsteps were to make glorious.¶ That ye go not up into the mount. Heb. bahar, in or upon the mount. It is important, if possible, to ascertain the exact idea, as otherwise it will be difficult to determine what is meant by the permission in the next verse, 'when 13 There shall not a hand touch it, but he shall surely be stoned or shot through: whether it be beast or man, it shall not live: when the trumpet soundeth long, they shall come up to the mount. x ver. 16, 19. the trumpet soundeth long, they shall come up to the mount,' where the phraseology in the original is precisely the same, bahar, in or upon the mount. It undoubtedly signifies something more than merely approaching the base of the mountain, its 'border' or extreme foot, and conveys the idea of some degree of ascent or climbing towards the summit. 13. There shall not an hand touch it. Heb. 77an lo tigga bo yad, there shall not an hand touch him. Our present translation evidently understands the 'mountain' as the object not to be touched with the hand. But that is forbidden in the clause immediately preceding, and here the true sense is doubtless that which is yielded by a literal rendering of the original. If a man or a beast should break through the prescribed limits and advance towards the mountain, they were not to rush in after him, apprehend him, and thrust him back, but on the contrary were to slay him on the spot by casting stones or shooting darts at him from a distance. Such a bold intruder upon forbidden ground, such a daring transgressor of an express divine precept, was to be regarded as so profane, execrable, and abominable, that they were not permitted to pollute their hands by touching him. What a speaking commentary upon God's estimate of presumptuous sin!-¶ When the trumpet soundeth long they shall come up, &c, Heb. A bimshok ha-yobel, in the drawing out of the trumpet; i. e. of the sound of the trumpet, On the true import of the word yobël here rendered 'trumpet,' see Note on Josh. 6. 4, 5. It is the | A comparison of the present passage word applied to the sounding of the with Josh. 6. 4, 5, seems rather to confirm the first of these as the genuine sense. Then the Israelites were commanded to compass the walls of Jericho for six days in succession, the priests continually blowing the rams' horns, and on the seventh when they make a long blast with the ram's horn (Heb. bimshok be-keren sho-ha-yobel, in the drawing out (of the sound made) by the horn of the ram, &c.-all the people shall shout.' By this is probably implied that when the sounding shall have been long continued, after they shall have heard it from day to day for six days, and through nearly the whole day on the seventh, then at the completion of the last circuit they should shout, and the walls would fall down. So here we are probably to understand that when the signal blast of the trumpet had been for a considerable time continued, they were to come up to the mount.' But this latter clause is if any thing still more difficult of explication than the preceding. Does it mean the removal of the foregoing restriction? It would seem that our translators supposed it did not, but implied rather that at the given signal the people were to approach to or towards the mount as far as the prescribed limits would permit. But this view of the matter is not favored by the original, which has 13 yaalu bahar, come up in, into, or upon the mount. The phrase is most evidently directly the reverse of the prohibition in v. 12, 'Take heed to yourselves that ye go not up into the mount (Heb. 33 be-migad shophara signifies according to Cartwright, Cum protracta fuerit buccina, when the (sound of the) trumpet shall have been prolonged; and thus substantially agrees with the Hebrew, the root negad answering precisely to mashak, and both signifying to draw out, extend, prolong. The Vulg. on the other hand adopts the former, Cum cœperit clangere buccina, when the trumpet shall begin to sound. hishshameru lakem aloth bahar, beware for yourselves of going up in, into, or upon the mount. Such is the literal rendering of the two clauses, and how are they to be reconciled? As read in the letter they show a plain dis crepancy, the one permitting what the other forbids. Some have proposed to surmount the difficulty by understand 14 ¶ And Moses went down from the mount unto the people, and y sanctified the people; and they washed their clothes. 15 And he said unto the people, z Be ready against the third day: a come not at your wives. ing the clause as an ironical concession; as if God had intended to intimate that before the trumpet blast was heard they should be strictly charged not to overpass the boundaries, but that after that time, and when the sound began to wax louder and louder, then they might ascend if they pleased, if they dared; for then the terrors of the scene would be of themselves so tremendous and repulsive, that there would be no special need of any express veto to forbid a nearer approach. But such a sense seems hardly consistent with the solemnity of the scene, and we are constrained on the whole to yield our assent to the import affixed to the words by the old versions, viz., that the limitation was to be annulled and the mountain freely ascended when the blast of the trumpet and the other supernatural sounds had been so long drawn out and protracted as to have become scarcely audible, and to be dying away upon the ear. In other words we think that the Sept. rendering, though paraphrastic, gives the true sense; 'When the voices, and the trumpets, and the cloud, are departed from the mountain, then shall ye go up.' As they were to remain encamped for a year at the base of the mountain it might be important for them to be assured of the divine permission to ascend from time to time to its top, and devoutly contemplate a spot recent ly hallowed by the footsteps of the glory of Jehovah. 16 And it came to pass on the third day in the morning, that there were b thunders and lightnings, and a c thick cloud upon the mount, and the d voice of the trumpet exceeding loud; so that all the people that was in the camp e trembled. Hebr. 12. 18, 19. Rev. 4. 5. & c ver. 9. ch. 40. 34. 2 Chron. 10. & 4. 1. e Hebr. 12. 21. b Ps. 77. 18. y ver. 10. z ver. 11. a 1 Sam. 21. 4, 5. Zech. 8. 5. & 11. 19. 7. 3. 1 Cor. 7. 5. 5. 14. d Rev. 1. and the fiftieth after the departure from Egypt. The morning was ushered in with terrible thunders and lightnings, and a cloud of deep lowering darkness resting upon the summit of the mount. The heavens and the earth and the elements conspired to signalize, in the most impressive manner, the advent of the Creator and Lord of the universe to this part of his dominions. Nearly every object of grandeur and awe of which we can conceive, enters into the description. Thunder, lightning, tempest, the blackness of darkness, smoke, fire, earthquake, and the trumpet of God! Never, in all probability, till the light of the last morning shall dawn, and the trump of the archangel shall peal its summons to arouse the dead, will such a spectacle be again witnessed on earth. We have only to reflect upon the design of this august visitation to be satisfied that such an apparatus of awful accompaniments was in the highest degree appropriate and seasonable. A deep moral impression in regard to the law about to be delivered was to be produced. Every thing accordingly was so ordered as to afford the most striking display of the glorious majesty of the Lawgiver, to point out the character of the law in its strictness and rigor, and its tremendous penalty, and withal to furnish a preintimation of the day of judgment, when every transgression of it will come into account. He who has made us, and who perfectly knows our frame, knows how best to suit his dispensations to our condition. It is no matter of surprise, therefore, that He 16. And it came to pass on the third day, &c. The eventful day at length arrived, the sixth of the month Sivan. |
