And the people stood afar off, and Moses drew near unto the thick darkness where God was.
At Sinai after God Himself spoke the Ten Commandments from the mount amid thunder and flame, the people stood afar off while Moses drew near into the thick darkness and cloud where God was. Overwhelmed by the trumpet and voice of God, the smoking mountain and devouring glory, they trembled and drew back in fear and reverence, fearing death if God spoke to them directly and asking that Moses speak with them instead. Moses told them not to fear, for God had come to prove and test them and to put His fear before them so they would not sin. That law was no new institution but the word from the beginning given in Eden, enduring truth spoken with divine authority to be sacredly observed, commanding rest on the seventh day as the memorial of creation and summed in wholehearted love to God and love to neighbor as oneself. Their desire for Moses to speak for them showed their need of a mediator, for they did not understand that Christ was the appointed Mediator through whom they could approach God without being consumed and find pardon, justification by faith, and access to God.
Scene at Sinai
The verse pictures the whole congregation holding back at a distance while Moses alone moves forward into the thick darkness and cloud where God is. The people remain far off from His presence on the mount, and Moses approaches what they dare not approach.
They draw back in fear and reverence before His sacred majesty and terrible glory. Thunderings and lightnings, the voice of God and the sound of the trumpet, the smoking mountain, fire and devouring glory, and commotion of the earth impress them until they tremble. They cannot endure the display, and by instinct they move afar off from the mount. The splendor is revealed in smoke and fire, with mysterious trumpet tones waxing louder and more terrible, peals of thunder reverberating from every mountainside, lightning flashing over the stern heights, and the glory of God as a devouring fire upon Sinai's summit amid cloud and tempest. Their hearts fail as they hear His voice from the smoke-covered, fiery mountain.
Fearing death if God should speak to them directly, they ask that Moses speak with them instead. They plead that the great Jehovah should not speak to them anymore but that Moses should receive the words and speak to them, lest God's speaking kill them. They cannot endure hearing God's voice directly after the law is given in awe-inspiring power, so they ask for the words to come through Moses.
Moses tells them not to fear, for God has come to prove and test them and to put His fear before them so that they will not sin. The event itself proves that God has talked with them from heaven.
The setting follows the proclamation of the Ten Commandments amid thunder and flame, when God speaks His law from Mount Sinai in awe-inspiring grandeur. There He takes Israel into covenant as a peculiar treasure and holy nation to be united with a holy God. Moses then enters the cloud to receive further instruction, directions, and words to pass on to the people. The Lord continues speaking with Moses and giving instruction about justice, mercy, necessity, and how people should treat one another. The instruction in Exodus 19 and 20 is to be repeated, studied, obeyed, and sacredly observed.
Moses is permitted to enter the surrounding thick darkness but not the cloud of glory itself. He stands between the people and the Lord as God gives the law at Sinai. God conceals His glory so that Moses, though mortal, can endure His presence, hear Him, and carry His words back to the people. Even Moses exceedingly fears and quakes at these tokens of Jehovah's presence, which heightens the contrast between the people's fearful distance and Moses' approach.
Law Proclaimed at Sinai
This moment belongs to God's own first proclamation at Sinai of His holy law, the Ten Commandments spoken by Himself in the hearing of the people and afterward written by God on stone so that they would not be forgotten or corrupted. The Lord came down in grandeur upon Mount Sinai to give the commandments to Israel rescued from bondage, and Moses then entered the cloud to receive directions to pass on to the people. The law proclaimed there was not first instituted there, for it was the word given from the beginning and the commandments given in Eden, there repeated with the Father and the Son present on the mount.
It was spoken in majesty and glory and awful grandeur with divine authority, and it stands as enduring verity and truth that cannot be abolished. As the highest source of education it is to be studied, sacredly observed, and obeyed in all its commandments. It commands that the seventh day be observed as a memorial of creation, for the Creator made the world in six days, rested on the seventh, and blessed and sanctified that day, with obedience linked to His mercy and love. The command to work six days and rest the seventh lets ox and ass, servant and stranger rest, and the Sabbath commandment is not displaced by observance of the first day.
Its fulfillment is expressed in wholehearted love to the Lord God with all heart and soul and strength and mind, and love to one's neighbor as oneself, which shows its importance and sums its requirement. To set aside one of these commandments and present in its place the observance of a day that bears no sanctity is to usurp an authority that infringes upon His divine prerogatives as Ruler of the world and will be dealt with by Jehovah. The Sunday sabbath is a child of the papacy set forth to be observed as the Lord's Sabbath, and to obey this human law compels transgression of the laws of Jehovah, for human enactments that conflict with the laws of God do not bear the stamp of divine approval. God spoke at Sinai to impress the importance of keeping His commandments so that people may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust, and mocking God and selling the soul for gold and silver rejects the eternity of bliss presented to those who keep them. For this He gave His only begotten Son to come to this world to give humanity the example of sinless humanity, so that humanity may grasp the divinity in Christ Jesus and every sinner coming to God through Christ may believe His arm will encircle them to care for and protect them, giving a helper in trials and difficulties who draws them close to the Saviour.
Mediator and Human Response
At Sinai the people kept their distance from God's presence while Moses drew near into the thick darkness where God was, and their fear led them to ask that Moses speak with them and mediate for them. Their desire for Moses to mediate reflected their need for a mediator, yet they did not understand that Christ was their appointed Mediator through whom they could approach God without being consumed. Their limited understanding also extended to the way of pardon through Christ, to justification by faith, and to access to God through a mediator, without whom they would have been consumed.
God had come to test them and to put His fear before them so that they would not sin, after they had seen the thunder and lightning and the smoking mountain and had asked that Moses speak with them lest they die if God spoke directly. That fear of God is to keep people from sin and from placing themselves where He cannot approve their actions. The Lord who talked with His people from heaven will still talk from heaven in a great many ways to those who cultivate the grace of humility and practice it in all their dealings in and out of the churches. Their experience of being unable to endure hearing God's voice directly after the law was given in awe-inspiring power should have led them to humility and to trust that God was leading them through Moses. Yet even right after hearing God's voice and receiving special favors they showed by repeated unbelief under trial how little hold they had on past experience, and while Moses was gone only forty days they committed a great apostasy by making a calf and turning from God to the lowest idolatry of worshipping the work of their own hands.
At Sinai after God Himself spoke the Ten Commandments from the mount amid thunder and flame, the people stood afar off while Moses drew near into the thick darkness and cloud where God was. Overwhelmed by the trumpet and voice of God, the smoking mountain and devouring glory, they trembled and drew back in fear and reverence, fearing death if God spoke to them directly and asking that Moses speak with them instead. Moses told them not to fear, for God had come to prove and test them and to put His fear before them so they would not sin. That law was no new institution but the word from the beginning given in Eden, enduring truth spoken with divine authority to be sacredly observed, commanding rest on the seventh day as the memorial of creation and summed in wholehearted love to God and love to neighbor as oneself. Their desire for Moses to speak for them showed their need of a mediator, for they did not understand that Christ was the appointed Mediator through whom they could approach God without being consumed and find pardon, justification by faith, and access to God.
Scene at Sinai
The verse pictures the whole congregation holding back at a distance while Moses alone moves forward into the thick darkness and cloud where God is. The people remain far off from His presence on the mount, and Moses approaches what they dare not approach.
They draw back in fear and reverence before His sacred majesty and terrible glory. Thunderings and lightnings, the voice of God and the sound of the trumpet, the smoking mountain, fire and devouring glory, and commotion of the earth impress them until they tremble. They cannot endure the display, and by instinct they move afar off from the mount. The splendor is revealed in smoke and fire, with mysterious trumpet tones waxing louder and more terrible, peals of thunder reverberating from every mountainside, lightning flashing over the stern heights, and the glory of God as a devouring fire upon Sinai's summit amid cloud and tempest. Their hearts fail as they hear His voice from the smoke-covered, fiery mountain.
Fearing death if God should speak to them directly, they ask that Moses speak with them instead. They plead that the great Jehovah should not speak to them anymore but that Moses should receive the words and speak to them, lest God's speaking kill them. They cannot endure hearing God's voice directly after the law is given in awe-inspiring power, so they ask for the words to come through Moses.
Moses tells them not to fear, for God has come to prove and test them and to put His fear before them so that they will not sin. The event itself proves that God has talked with them from heaven.
The setting follows the proclamation of the Ten Commandments amid thunder and flame, when God speaks His law from Mount Sinai in awe-inspiring grandeur. There He takes Israel into covenant as a peculiar treasure and holy nation to be united with a holy God. Moses then enters the cloud to receive further instruction, directions, and words to pass on to the people. The Lord continues speaking with Moses and giving instruction about justice, mercy, necessity, and how people should treat one another. The instruction in Exodus 19 and 20 is to be repeated, studied, obeyed, and sacredly observed.
Moses is permitted to enter the surrounding thick darkness but not the cloud of glory itself. He stands between the people and the Lord as God gives the law at Sinai. God conceals His glory so that Moses, though mortal, can endure His presence, hear Him, and carry His words back to the people. Even Moses exceedingly fears and quakes at these tokens of Jehovah's presence, which heightens the contrast between the people's fearful distance and Moses' approach.
Law Proclaimed at Sinai
This moment belongs to God's own first proclamation at Sinai of His holy law, the Ten Commandments spoken by Himself in the hearing of the people and afterward written by God on stone so that they would not be forgotten or corrupted. The Lord came down in grandeur upon Mount Sinai to give the commandments to Israel rescued from bondage, and Moses then entered the cloud to receive directions to pass on to the people. The law proclaimed there was not first instituted there, for it was the word given from the beginning and the commandments given in Eden, there repeated with the Father and the Son present on the mount.
It was spoken in majesty and glory and awful grandeur with divine authority, and it stands as enduring verity and truth that cannot be abolished. As the highest source of education it is to be studied, sacredly observed, and obeyed in all its commandments. It commands that the seventh day be observed as a memorial of creation, for the Creator made the world in six days, rested on the seventh, and blessed and sanctified that day, with obedience linked to His mercy and love. The command to work six days and rest the seventh lets ox and ass, servant and stranger rest, and the Sabbath commandment is not displaced by observance of the first day.
Its fulfillment is expressed in wholehearted love to the Lord God with all heart and soul and strength and mind, and love to one's neighbor as oneself, which shows its importance and sums its requirement. To set aside one of these commandments and present in its place the observance of a day that bears no sanctity is to usurp an authority that infringes upon His divine prerogatives as Ruler of the world and will be dealt with by Jehovah. The Sunday sabbath is a child of the papacy set forth to be observed as the Lord's Sabbath, and to obey this human law compels transgression of the laws of Jehovah, for human enactments that conflict with the laws of God do not bear the stamp of divine approval. God spoke at Sinai to impress the importance of keeping His commandments so that people may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust, and mocking God and selling the soul for gold and silver rejects the eternity of bliss presented to those who keep them. For this He gave His only begotten Son to come to this world to give humanity the example of sinless humanity, so that humanity may grasp the divinity in Christ Jesus and every sinner coming to God through Christ may believe His arm will encircle them to care for and protect them, giving a helper in trials and difficulties who draws them close to the Saviour.
Mediator and Human Response
At Sinai the people kept their distance from God's presence while Moses drew near into the thick darkness where God was, and their fear led them to ask that Moses speak with them and mediate for them. Their desire for Moses to mediate reflected their need for a mediator, yet they did not understand that Christ was their appointed Mediator through whom they could approach God without being consumed. Their limited understanding also extended to the way of pardon through Christ, to justification by faith, and to access to God through a mediator, without whom they would have been consumed.
God had come to test them and to put His fear before them so that they would not sin, after they had seen the thunder and lightning and the smoking mountain and had asked that Moses speak with them lest they die if God spoke directly. That fear of God is to keep people from sin and from placing themselves where He cannot approve their actions. The Lord who talked with His people from heaven will still talk from heaven in a great many ways to those who cultivate the grace of humility and practice it in all their dealings in and out of the churches. Their experience of being unable to endure hearing God's voice directly after the law was given in awe-inspiring power should have led them to humility and to trust that God was leading them through Moses. Yet even right after hearing God's voice and receiving special favors they showed by repeated unbelief under trial how little hold they had on past experience, and while Moses was gone only forty days they committed a great apostasy by making a calf and turning from God to the lowest idolatry of worshipping the work of their own hands.