Exodus
19
THE
JOURNEY TO
From Rephidim in the Wady
Feiran, where they had discomfited Amalek (ch. 17:8-13),
the Israelites moved towards Sinai, probably by the two passes
known as Wady Solar
and Wady-esh-Sheikh, which gradually
converge and meet at the entrance to the plain
of Er-Rahah. This plain is generally
allowed to be “the
long, and half-a-mile broad” (Our Work
in Palestine, p. 268), nearly flat, and dotted with
tamarisk bushes.
The mountains which enclose it have for the most part sloping sides, and
form a sort of natural amphitheater. The plain abuts
at its southeastern extremity on abrupt
cliffs of granite rock rising from it nearly
perpendicularly, and known as the Ras Sufsafeh.
“That such
a plain should exist at all in front of such a cliff is,” as Dean Stanley well
remarks,
“so remarkable a coincidence with the sacred narrative, as to
furnish a strong internal
argument, not merely of its identity with the scene, but
of the scene itself having been
described by an eye-witness” (Sinai
and Palestine, pp. 42-3). All the surroundings are
such as exactly suit the narrative. “The awful and
lengthened approach, as to some
natural sanctuary, would have been the fittest
preparation for the coming scene. The
low line of alluvial mounds at the foot of the cliff exactly
answers to the ‘bounds’ which
were to keep the people off from ‘touching the mount.’ The plain itself
is not broken
and uneven and narrowly shut in, like almost all others in the
range, but presents a long
retiring sweep, against which the people could ‘remove and
stand afar off’ The cliff, rising
like a huge altar, in front of the whole congregation,
and visible against the sky in lonely
grandeur from end to end of the whole plain, is the very
image of the mount that might be
touched, and from which the voice of God might be heard far
and wide over the plain
below, widened at that point to its utmost extent by
the confluence of all the contiguous
valleys. Here, beyond all other parts of the peninsula,
is the adytum, withdrawn as if in the
end ‘of the world,’ from all the stir and confusion of earthly
things” (ib, p. 43). As
an
eminent engineer has observed — “No spot in
the world can be pointed out which
combines in a more remarkable manner the conditions of a
commanding height and
of a plain in every part of which the sights and sounds
described in Exodus would reach
an assembled multitude of more than two million souls.” Here then,
we may well say, in
the words used by the most recent of scientific explorers, “was the
scene of the giving
of the law. From Ras Sufsafeh the law was proclaimed to the children of
in the plains of Er Rahah” (Our Work in Palestine, p. 208).
vs. 1-2 – “In the third month, when the children of
of the
they were departed from Rephidim,
and were come to the
had pitched in the wilderness; and there
LOCALITIES
SHAPED TO SUIT GOD’S MORAL PURPOSE
It is
scarcely possible to read the descriptions of the Sinaitic
localities by modern travelers,
who pointedly note their exact adaptation to
the scenes transacted among
them, without the feeling stealing upon us, that God,
in the countless ages during
which He was shaping and ordering the earth to be a
fitting habitation for man was
also arranging it in such sort as would best
conduce to the exhibition upon it of those
supernatural occurrences, which in His counsels were to
constitute turning-points in
the moral history of man. Take for instance
valleys were furrowed and the rocky platform upraised by
the elements acting
mechanically, as chance might direct, or not rather that God
lovingly shaped, age
after age, the mountain where He was about to set His
name, (landscaping if you
please – CY – 2010) and which was to be “the joy of the whole earth”? (Psalm
48:2.)
existence to constitute the site for that capital which
was to be, first and last, the pivot
of the world’s secular history; for five hundred years the
seat of an almost universal empire;
for a thousand the western ecclesiastical center; and having in
the future possibilities which
the wisest forecast can only dimly indicate, but which
transcend those of any other existing
city. And, if
in these cases
view to the future history, must it not have been the
same at Sinai? Must not that vast granite
cluster have been upreared in
the place it holds by a series of throes which shook all the
regions of the east, in order that from it the
law might be given in such a way as to
impress men deeply? Must not the plain Er-Rahah
have been washed by floods into its
present level surface to furnish a convenient place
from which the multitudinous host of
modeled, that here should be the
adytum — here and here alone in the entire district,
should be the natural “inmost sanctuary” — penetrale — “holy of holies” — the
center of attraction — the fit spot for supernatural
events, on which the future of mankind
was to hinge for
centuries? To us it seems, that God did not so
much select for His
supernatural communications with man the fittest of
existing localities, as design the
localities themselves with a view to the
communications, shaping them to suit his moral
purposes.
THE
FIRST COVENANT BETWEEN GOD AND
As
Moses, having reached the foot of Sinai, was proceeding to ascend the mountain,
where he looked to have special revelations from
God, God called to him out of the
mountain, and required a positive engagement on the
part of the people, before He
would condescend to enter into further direct
relations with them. If, through gratitude
for what had been done for them in the
deliverance from
solemnly engage to obey God and keep the covenant
that He should make with them (v. 5),
then a fresh revelation should be made, and
fresh engagements entered into; but not otherwise.
Moses
communicated the message to the people through the elders, and received the
solemn
promise, which he carried back to God. “All that the Lord hath spoken we will do.”
vs. 3-9 – “And Moses went up unto God, and
the LORD called unto him out of the
mountain, saying, Thus shalt
thou say to the house of Jacob, and tell the children of
with respect to the future, by reminding them
of what He had done for them in the past. In the
fewest possible words He recalls to their
recollection the whole series of signs and wonders
wrought in
host in the
I bare you on eagles’ wings” - (compare
Deuteronomy 32:11), where the metaphor is
expanded at considerable length The strength and might
of God’s sustaining care, and its
loving tenderness, are especially glanced at in the
comparison. “and
brought you unto
myself” - “to Sinai, the mount of God, where it pleases
me especially to reveal
myself to you.” “Now
therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my
covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto
me” - (segullah) —
a precious possession to be esteemed highly and carefully
guarded from all that might
injure it.
(Compare Psalm 135:4; and see also Isaiah 43:1-4). And this preciousness
they shall not share with others on equal terms, but
enjoy exclusively — it shall be theirs
“above all people for all the earth is mine” - No other nation on the earth shall hold
the position which they shall hold, or be equally precious in
God’s sight. All the earth is
His: and so
all nations are His in a certain sense.
But this shall not interfere with the
special Israelite prerogative they alone
shall be His “peculiar people”
(Deuteronomy
14:2). “And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of
priests” - Or “a royalty of priests”
— at once a royal and a priestly race — all of you at once
both priests and kings.
(So the
LXX. render, basi>leion iJera>teuma; the Targums of Onkelos and
“kings and
priests;” that of Jonathan, “crowned kings and ministering priests.”) They
would be “kings,” not only as “lords over death, the devil, hell,
and all evil” (Luther), but
also partly as having no earthly king set over them,
but designed to live under a theocracy
(I Samuel 12:12), and partly as intended to exercise lordship over the
heathen. Their
unfaithfulness
and disobedience soon forfeited both privileges. They would
be
“priests,” as entitled — each one of them — to draw near to
God directly in prayer and
praise, though not in sacrifice, and also as
intermediaries between God and the heathen
world, to whom they were to be examples, instructors,
prophets – “and
an holy nation” -
A
nation unlike other nations — a nation consecrated to God’s service, outwardly
marked as His by the symbol of circumcision, His
(if they chose) inwardly by the purity and
holiness whereto they could attain. “These are the words which thou shalt speak unto
the children of
one. Would they accept the covenant or no,
upon the conditions offered? It was
not likely that they would reject such
gracious proposals. “And Moses came and called
for the elders of the people, and laid before
their faces all these words which the
LORD commanded him.”
- When they were come together, Moses reported to
them
“totidem verbis” - the message which he had received from God. (This is the
responsibility of every messenger of the Lord God – CY
– 2010) - He is said to have
laid the words “before their faces” — a
Hebraism, meaning simply “before them.”
“ And all
the people answered together, and said, All that the LORD hath spoken
we will do.” - It
would seem that the elders submitted to the whole congregation the
question propounded by Moses; or at any rate
submitted it to a popular meeting, fairly
representing the congregation. No doubt the exact
purport of the question was made
known by the usual means beforehand, and the
assembly was summoned to declare, by
acclamation, its assent or dissent. The result was a unanimous shout of approval:
—
“All that the Lord hath spoken we will do” — i.e., “we
will obey His voice indeed,
and keep His covenant” (see v. 5). In this way
they accepted the covenant beforehand,
not knowing what its exact provisions would
be, but assured in their hearts that all would
be right, just, and good; and anxious to
secure the promised blessings (vs. 5-6) for
themselves and their posterity. “And
Moses returned the words of the people
unto
the LORD.” - Moses
was the mouthpiece both ways. He took the messages of God to
the people, and carried back (“returned”)
their answer. “And the LORD said unto
Moses, Lo, I come unto thee in a thick cloud” - Literally, “in the thickness of a
cloud.” God must
always veil Himself when He speaks with man, for man could not
bear “the brightness of His presence.” If He takes a human form that form is a veil; if
He appears
in a burning bush, the very fire is a shroud. On the present occasion it was
the more needful that He should cover Himself up, as He was
about to draw near to the
whole congregation, among whom were many who were
impure and impenitent. It was
necessary, in order that all might be convinced of the
Divine mission of Moses, for all to be
so near as to hear Him speak out of the cloud; but
sinners cannot abide the near presence
of God, unless He is carefully hidden away from them. Probably,
the cloud out of which He
now spoke was that which had accompanied the Israelites out of
march (ch.13:21-22), though this is not distinctly
stated – “that the people may hear
when
I speak with thee, and believe thee for ever.” - In “the people” are
included their
descendants; and they are to “believe Moses for ever, because the law is in
some sense of eternal obligation
on all men” (Matthew 5:18). “And Moses told the
words of the people unto the LORD.”
GOD’S
PROMISES TO SUCH AS KEEP HIS COMMANDMENTS
Three
things are here specially worthy of consideration:
threefold —
they shall be kings; they shall be priests; they shall be his
peculiar
treasure:
ü Kings. Most men
are slaves — servants of Satan, servants of sin, slaves
to
their evil passions, slaves to opinion, abject slaves to those among
their
fellow-men on whom they depend for daily bread, or for favor and
advancement.
The glorious liberty of the children of God shakes off all
these
yokes. Man, awakened to his true relations with God, at once
asserts
himself, realizes his dignity, feels that he need “call no man,
master.” He himself
is supreme over himself; his conscience is his
law,
not the will of another. His life, his acts, his words, are
under his
own
control. Within this sphere he is “king,” directing and ruling his
conduct
according to his own views of what is right and fitting; and
this
kingship is mostly followed by another. Let a man once show
himself
a true, brave, upright, independent person, and he will soon
have
subjects enough. The weak place themselves under his protection,
the
timid under his guidance. He will have a clientele, which will
continually
grow so long as he remains on earth, and in Heaven
he
will be a “king”
too. The “faithful and
true servant” has
“authority over ten cities.” (Luke 19:17)
- he “reigns
with Christ
for ever and ever” - (Revelation 20:6; 22:5).
ü Priests. A priest
is one who is consecrated to God, who has free and
ready
access to Him without an intermediary at all times and seasons,
and
who acts as an intermediary between God and others. As
circumcision
consecrated the Israelite, so baptism consecrates the
Christian. he receives “an
unction from the Holy One” (I John 1:20),
and
is thenceforth a “priest
to God,” bound to His service, brought near
to
Him, entitled to “go
boldly to the throne of grace,” (Hebrews
4:16)
to
offer up his own prayers and intercessions, nay — even to “enter into
the holiest” (Hebrews
10:19). He is further not only entitled,
but bound
to
act as intermediary between God and those who do not know God; to
teach
them; convert them, if he can; intercede for them; under certain
circumstances,
and to baptize them.
ü His
peculiar treasure. The world despises God’s servants, sets little
store
by them, regards them as poor weak creatures, whom it may ill-use
at
its pleasure. But God holds each servant dear, sets a high value on him,
regards
him as precious. “They shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts,
in that day when I make up my jewels” (Malachi
3:17). Each saint is a
jewel
in the crown of the Lord Christ, and is estimated accordingly. A
king
would as soon lose one of his crown jewels as Christ one of those for
whom
He shed His precious blood. He has “bought
them at a price;”
(I Corinthians 6:20) – they are His; and the value which He sets on them
no
man can know. They are to him “more precious than rubies.”
TRUSTED. As we have found of men in the past, so we look to find
of them in the
future. God bade the Israelites look back, and consider
what He had already done
for them — whether in the past He had proved Himself
faithful and true — whether
He had supported
and sustained them, “borne
them up on eagle’s wings,” (v. 4) –
protected them, delivered them from
dangers. If this were so, could they not trust
Him for the future? Would
they not believe the promises which He now held out to
them? Would they
not regard them as certain of accomplishment? The Israelites
appear to have believed; and shall not Christians do
the like? Have not above three
thousand years tested God’s faithfulness, since He thus
spoke to
long course of these millennia has He ever been proved
unfaithful? Assuredly not.
All that He promises,
and more than all He promises, does He perform for the sons
of men. Never does
He disappoint them; never does He fail to make good His
word. Each
promise of God therefore may be trusted implicitly. “God is not
a
man that He should lie, or the son of man that He should repent: hath He
said, and shall
He not do it? or hath He spoken,
and shall He not make it
good?” - (Deuteronomy 23:19) - He is
true, and therefore must will to do
as He
has said; He
is omnipotent, and therefore must be
able to do as He wills. (I
love the
testimony of Joshua – “and ye know in all your hearts and in all your souls,
that not one good thing hath failed of all the
good things which the Lord your
God
spake concerning you; all are come to pass unto you, and not one
thing
hath failed thereof” – [Joshua 23:14] – CY – 2010)
“If
ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant.” The precious
promises of
God to man are conditional upon”
ü his general
obedience;
ü
his observance of a certain formal covenant.
The obedience must be “an
obedience indeed” — i.e., an obedience from
the heart,
sincere, loving, complete, so far as human frailty permits — not
partial,
not grudging, not outward only. The covenant must be kept in all
its
essentials. To the Jew, circumcision was necessary, after which he had
to make
offerings, to attend certain festivals year by year, to pay tithes, and
to observe
numerous minute regulations with regard to “cleanness” and
“uncleanness.” The
Christian covenant has but two essential rites, Baptism
and the
Lord’s Supper. Still, if we look for
covenanted mercies and claim
them, we must
take
THE
PREPARATION OF THE PEOPLE AND OF THE MOUNTAIN
FOR
THE MANIFESTATION OF GOD UPON IT
The
people having accepted God’s terms, the time had come for the revelation in all
its
fullness of the covenant which God designed to make
with them. This, it was essential,
they should perceive and know to come from God,
and not to be the invention of Moses.
God,
therefore, was about to manifest Himself. But
ere He could do this with safety, it
was requisite that certain preparations should
be made. Before man can be fit to
approach God, he needs to be sanctified. The
essential sanctification is internal; but,
as internal purity and holiness cannot be
produced at a given moment, Moses was
ordered to require its outward symbol, external
bodily cleanliness, by ablution and the
washing of clothes, as a preliminary to God’s
descent upon the mountain (vs. 10, 13).
It
would be generally understood that this external purity was symbolical only,
and
needed to be accompanied by internal cleanliness.
Further, since even the purest of men
is impure in God’s sight, and since there
would be many in the congregation who had
attempted no internal cleansing, it was necessary to
provide that they should not draw
too near, so as to intrude on the holy ground
or on God’s presence. Moses was
therefore required to have a fence erected round the
mountain, between it and the
people, and to proclaim the penalty of death
against all who should pass it and touch
the mount (vs. 12-13). In executing these
orders, Moses gave an additional charge to
the heads of families, that they should purify
themselves by an act of abstinence which
he specified (v.15).
vs. 10-15 – “And the LORD said unto Moses, Go
unto the people, and sanctify
them to day and tomorrow: - the
requirement of a two days’ preparation marked the
extreme sanctity of the occasion – “and let them wash their clothes” - Compare
Leviticus
15:5. Rich people could “change their garments” on a sacred occasion
(Genesis
35:2); the poorer sort, having no change, could only wash them. “And be
ready
against the third day: for the third day the LORD
will come
down in the
sight of all the people upon mount Sinai. And thou shalt
set bounds unto the
people round about, saying, Take heed to yourselves, that ye go not up
into the
mount” - Unless the fence had
been made, cattle would, naturally, have
grazed along
its base. To impress the Israelites with a due
sense of the awful majesty
of God, and
the sacredness of everything material that it
brought into close relations with Him,
the
mount itself was declared holy — none but Moses
and Aaron might go up into it; none
might touch it; even the stray beast that
approached it must suffer death for its
unwitting
offence (v.13) - “or touch the
border of it: whosoever toucheth the mount shall be
surely put to death” - A terrible punishment, and one which, to
modern ideas, seems
excessive. But it was only by terrible threats, and in
some cases by terrible punishments
(II Samuel 6:7), that the Israelites could be taught reverence. A profound
reverence lies
at the root of all true religious feeling; and for the
education of the world, it was
requisite, in the early ages, to inculcate the necessity
of this frame of mind in some
very marked and striking way. “There
shall not an 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.
And
Moses went down from the mount unto the
people, and sanctified the
people;
and they washed their clothes. And he said unto the people, Be ready against
the third day: come not at your wives.”
THE AWFULNESS OF GOD’S PRESENCE AND
THE PREPARATION
NEEDED ERE
WE APPROACH HIM!
even to those holy angels who are without spot or
stain of sin, having done the
holy will of their Maker from their creation. (Note Isaiah
6:2-3) - But to sinful
man it is far more awful. No man “can see God’s face, and live” - (ch.
33:20).
Jacob was
mistaken when he said, “I have seen God face to
face, and my life is
preserved” (Genesis
32:30). He had really wrestled
with an angel (Hosea 12:4).
When Moses requested to see the Almighty’s glory, he was told, “Thou shalt see
my back parts;
but my face shall not be seen” ( ch. 33:23). “No man
has seen
God at any time,” says John the Evangelist (John 1:18). But, even
apart from
sight, there is in the very sense of the presence of
God an awful terribleness. “I
am troubled at his presence,” said Job; “when I consider, I am afraid of
him” (Job 23:15). “Truly the Lord is in this place,” said Jacob, “and I
knew it not. How
dreadful is this place!” (Genesis
28:16-17). God is at all
times
everywhere; but He veils Himself, He practically withdraws Himself;
and, though
He is where we are, we do not see Him, or perceive Him (Job
23. 8-9). But, let Him reveal His
presence, and at once all tremble before it.
“Mine
eye seeth him,” says Job again, “wherefore I abhor myself, and
repent in dust and ashes” (Job 42:5-6) “When I heard,” says Habakkuk,
“my belly trembled, my lips quivered at the voice; rottenness entered
into my bones, and I
trembled in myself” (Habakkuk 3:16). In part, no
doubt,
weakness trembles before strength, littleness before greatness,
finiteness
before infinity; but, mainly, it is sinfulness that quakes and shrinks
before perfect holiness, corruption
that shivers before incorruption,
rottenness
before absolute purity.
“pure in heart” can “see God.” In all our approaches to Him, we must
seek first
to be made fit for propinquity by separation from sin. Moses was
bidden to “sanctify the people’ (v. 10),
which he could only do outwardly.
This true sanctification, the true
purification, was heart-felt repentance,
deep
contrition, and the earnest resolve to forsake sin, and henceforth live
righteously.
This preparation each man had to make for himself. It was in
vain that
he should wash himself seven times, or seven times seven, in vain
that he
should purify his garments, and keep himself free from material
pollutions
of every sort and kind — something more was needed — he required
to be
purified in heart and soul. And so it is with Christians — with all men
universally.
God must be approached with humility — not in the spirit of the
Pharisee; with reverence — head bowed
down, and voice hushed to a low tone,
and heart
full of the fear of His holiness; with a pure mind — that is, with a
mind averse
from sin, and resolved henceforth to do righteously. The publican’s
approach
was better than the Pharisee’s. Let men “smite upon their breast,” let
them be
deeply convinced of sin, and own themselves sinners; let them implore
the
blotting out of their sins, and the cleansing of their entire nature; let them
heartily resolve
to sin no more, but walk in newness of life, and there is no
contact which
they need dread, no nearness of approach from which they need
shrink. We
are not, indeed, to hope in this life for that vision of God, or for
that degree
of communion, which our souls desire. “Now
we see through a
glass darkly — now we know in part.” (I
Corinthians 13:12) - The full
vision
of God, full access to Him, complete communion, is reserved for the
next world, where it will form our perfect bliss and
consummation.
THE
MANIFESTATION OF GOD UPON SINAI
All was ready.
The fence had been made (v. 23); the people had purified themselves —
at least so far as externals went. The third day was come —
there was a breathless hush
of expectation. Then
suddenly, in the morning, God manifested Himself. “There
were thunders and lightnings,
and a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of
the trumpet exceeding loud” (v. 16); “and
because the Lord descended upon it in fire; and the
smoke thereof ascended as the
smoke of a furnace and the whole mount quaked
greatly” (v.18) Or, as the scene
is elsewhere (Deuteronomy 4:11-12) described by Moses — “Ye came near and stood
under the mountain, and the mountain burned with fire
unto the
midst of heaven,
with darkness, clouds, and thick darkness. And the Lord spoke unto you out of
the midst of the fire: ye heard the voice of the words, but saw no
similitude; only
ye heard a voice.” The
phenomena were not a mere “storm of thunder and
lightning,
whereof Moses took advantage to persuade the people that
they had heard God’s
voice” — not “an earthquake with volcanic eruptions” — not
even these two
combined — but a real
theophany, in which amid the phenomena of storm and
tempest, and fire and smoke, and thick darkness, and
hearings of the ground as by an
earthquake shock, first the loud blast of a trumpet
sounded long commanding
attention, and then a clear penetrating voice, like that
of a man, made itself heard in
distinctly articulated words, audible to the whole
multitude, and recognized by them
as superhuman — as “the
voice of God” (Deuteronomy 4:33). It is in vain to seek to
minimize, and to rationalize the scene, and tone it down into
something not supernatural.
The only
honest course is either to accept it as a plain record of plain (albeit miraculous)
facts, or to reject it altogether as the fiction of a
romancer.
vs. 16-20 – “And it came to pass on the third
day in the morning, that there
were thunders and lightnings,
and a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice
of the trumpet exceeding loud; so that all
the people that was in the camp trembled.
And Moses brought forth the people out of
the camp to meet with God; and they
stood at the nether part of the mount. And mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke,
because the LORD descended upon it in fire: and
the smoke thereof ascended as
the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount
quaked greatly. And when the voice
of the trumpet sounded long, and waxed louder
and louder” - This is a somewhat free
translation; but it gives well the real meaning of the
Hebrew. We may conclude that the
trumpet’s blast was not continuous. It sounded when the
manifestation began (v.16). It
sounded again, much louder and with a much more
prolonged note, to herald the actual
descent of God upon the mount. This time the sound was
so piercing, so terrible, so
intolerable, that Moses could no longer endure to keep
silence, but burst out in speech.
Were his
words those recorded in Hebrews 12:21 — “I
exceedingly fear and quake”
— words not found now in the Old Testament — or were they
others which have been
wholly lost to us? It is impossible to say. His
speech, however, had the effect of
bringing the awful preparations to a close — “Moses spake, and God answered him
by a voice. And the
LORD came down upon mount Sinai, on the top of the mount:
and the LORD called Moses up to the top of the
mount; and Moses went up.”
GOD’S
VARIOUS MODES OF MANIFESTING HIMSELF
It has been
well said that “when God reveals Himself it is in a manner suitable to the
occasion.” No
revelation that He has made of Himself has ever been so terrible in its
material accompaniments as that at Sinai; and no occasion
can ever be conceived of as
more needing the employment of solemn, startling,
and impressive circumstances.
Here was a
people gross of heart, delighting in flesh-pots, debased by slavery, careless
of freedom, immoral, inclined to idolatry, which had
to be elevated into God’s living
witness among the nations, the depositary of his
truth, the teacher of the rest of
mankind for ages. Given the object of impressing such a nation permanently
with the
conviction that it had received a Divine revelation, and that
very dreadful consequences
would follow the neglect of it, and the need of the
thunders and other terrors of Sinai
becomes manifest. At other times and
in other places God has pursued quite different
methods. To Elijah He revealed Himself in the “still small voice;” to Isaiah and John
in visions; to the apostles generally in the solemn
teaching of His Son; to Paul in
ecstasies,
wherein he heard unspeakable words. (II Corinthians 12:1-4)
- The contrast
between the day of the giving of the law on Sinai and
the day of Pentecost has often
been noticed.
“When God
of old came down from Heaven,
In
power and wrath He came;
Before His
feet the clouds were riven,
Half darkness and half flame.”
“But when
He came the second time,
He
came in power and love:
Softer
than gale at morning prime,
Hovered His holy Dove.”
The coming
of the Spirit at Pentecost and the coming of Jesus were, both of them,
gentle and peaceful Epiphanies, suited to the time
when God, having educated the
world for four thousand years or more, was about to
seek to win men to Himself by
the preaching of “good
tidings” — of the gospel of love. The clouds
and terrors of
Sinai would
here have been out of place — unsuitable anachronisms. In complete harmony
with the two occasions were — at
angels singing of peace on earth, the lone shepherds
watching their flocks
at night — in
round the heads of holy men, the unseen inward influence
shed into their hearts
at the same time, impalpable to sense, but
with power to revolutionize the world. And
as God reveals Himself to His Church in manifold ways, each
fitting the occasion, so does
He reveal
Himself to individuals. Now He comes clothed in His terrors. He visits
with
calamity or with sickness, or with that awful dread
which from time to time
comes over the soul, that it is lost, hopelessly
lost, alienated from God for ever. Anon,
He shows
Himself in gentler guise — He whispers hope, He instills faith, He awakens
love.
In every case He studies the
needs of the individual, and adapts His revelation of
Himself to
them. Now He calls by His preachers, now He warns by the “still small
voice” of conscience; now He wakes men out of sleep by
a sudden danger or a sudden
deliverance; anon, He startles them out of a
self-complacency worse than sleep by
withdrawing Himself and allowing them to fall. It is for
man to take advantage of
every Divine manifestation, to listen when God speaks,
to obey when He calls, to make
the use of each occasion which it was intended to have, to “receive God’s revelations
of
Himself in His own way.”
THE FURTHER WARNING TO THE PEOPLE AND THE PRIESTS
It is
very remarkable that, after all the directions given (vs. 10-13), and all the
pains
taken by Moses and the Israelites themselves
(vs. 14-15, 23), God should still have thought
it necessary to interpose with a fresh
warning, and to send Moses back from
the top of the mount to the bottom, in order
to communicate the renewed warning to the
people. We can only suppose that, in spite of the
instructions previously given and the
precautions taken, there were those among the
people who were prepared to “break
through” The
fence, and invade the mount, and who would have done so, to their
own destruction (v.21), but for this second warning. The
special mention of the
“priests” (vs.
22, 24) raises the suspicion, that this proud and rebellious spirit was
particularly developed among them. Accustomed to the
exercise of sacred functions,
they may have been inclined to regard Their own
purity as equal to that of Moses and
Aaron;
and they may even have resented their exclusion from a sacred spot to which
the two sons of Amram
were admitted. Apparently, they had conceived that the injunction
to go through the recogniZed
ceremonies of purification (v.10) did not
apply to them, and had neglected to do so, on
which account a special command had
to be issued, addressed to them only (v. 22).
vs. 21-25 – “And the LORD said unto Moses, Go
down, charge the people, lest
they break through unto the LORD to gaze, and
many of them perish. And let
the priests also, which come near to the LORD,
sanctify themselves, lest the
LORD break forth upon them” – The
natural inference is that the priests had neglected
to sanctify themselves - “And
Moses said unto the LORD, The people cannot come
up to mount Sinai: for thou chargedst us, saying,
Set bounds about the mount,
and sanctify it. And
the LORD said unto him, Away, get thee down, and thou
shalt come up, thou, and Aaron with thee: but let
not the priests and the people
break through” – Both
the priests and the people were to be again solemnly warned
that it would be death to break through the
fence. This warning seems to have
been
sufficient! - “to come up unto the LORD, lest
He break forth upon them. So
Moses went down unto the people, and spake unto them.”
THE PRIESTLY OFFICE DOES NOT DISPENSE A MAN
FROM PERSONAL
PURITY
BUT OBLIGES HIM THE MORE TO IT.
Holiness of
office, of profession, of function is too often regarded as if it secured, by
some
occult power, the personal holiness of the individual,
or even of the class, exercising it. The
priest castes of
footing from the rest of the community in respect of
nearness, and acceptability to God.
And both
under the Jewish and the Christian dispensation, there has been in different
times
and countries a vast amount of sacerdotal pretension, a wide-spread
disposition to assume
that official covers and includes personal holiness.
But Holy Scripture abounds in warnings
against any such assumption. “Let the priests sanctify themselves.” Nadab and Abihu,
the sons of Aaron, were chosen among the first of the Levitical priests (ch 28:1); yet their
priestly office did not prevent them from sinning
grievously by offering “strange fire
before
the Lord,” and perishing for their impiety (Leviticus
10:1-2). Eli’s sons were “sons
of
Belial” (I
Samuel 2:12), whose “sin was very
great before the Lord” (ibid. v. 17).
Even
among the apostles there was a “son of perdition.” (John
17:12; II Thessalonians 2:3)
Priests
have to remember:
BEING TEMPTED. Even Christ, our great High Priest — the only
true priest
that the world has ever seen, was “in all points tempted like as we are, yet
without sin” (Hebrews
4:15). Eli’s sons were tempted by greed
and fleshly
lusts (I Samuel
2:16, 22); Nadab and Abihu
by pride; Judas by covetousness.
All men have the same nature, like passions,
similar appetites.
The priest, after
all, is a man. Satan
watches for him no less — or rather much more — than
for others. It is
a greater triumph for him to lead astray the shepherd than
the sheep. And the
relations of a priest towards his
flock are of such a nature —
so close, so
private sometimes — as to lay
him open to special temptations.
YIELDING TO TEMPTATION. Jesus
alone was “in all points tempted,
yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15). “ALL we the rest, although
baptized and born
again in Christ, yet offend in many things,” yield
to the temptations which
surround us, transgress the Divine law. Nadab, Abihu, Eli’s sons,
Judas, were
not only tempted, but fell. The priests of
independent kingdom, were among those who provoked
God the most
(Jeremiah 32:32;
Zephaniah 3:4). Christian ministers, even at the present day,
too often disgrace their profession, bring shame upon
their church, and even
upon religion itself, by acts of sin or sometimes
by scandalous lives, no better
than those of the sons of Eli. These terrible examples should be a warning to
all
of their danger, and should render the minister distrustful of
himself, circumspect,
vigilant, and above all prayerful. Only by God’s
help can he hope to stand
upright.
ENTAIL A SORER
PUNISHMENT. Ministers of Christ pledge themselves by
special vows, over and above their baptismal vows, to
lead godly lives. They are
bound to be examples to the flock. They have greater opportunities
of grace than
others. Their offences cause greater scandal than the
offences of others, and do
greater damage to the cause of religion. There is something shocking, even to the
worldly man, in the immorality of one whose business in life
is to minister in holy things.
The impure
minister is a hypocrite; and hypocrisy is hateful to God, and even in
the
sight of man contemptible.
Priests are they whose office it is
to “come near the Lord” (v. 22) — to
draw
closer to Him
than others — to lead others on to Him, by exhortation, by
example, by
intercessory prayer. Without holiness they are impotent to
perform their work — they are of
no service either to God or man — they do
but help forward the work of the devil. Ministering in a holy place, in holy
things,
with holy words continually in their mouths, if they have not holiness in
their
hearts, their lives must be a perpetual contradiction, a continual profanity.
Again, as already observed, they
take special
vows: they profess before God
and the
congregation to have an inward call; they spontaneously promise to live
as examples
to others; they enter on
their position in life on these conditions:
they bind
themselves. Not to live holy lives is to fly in the face of
these
obligations
— to break the
promises made to man and the vows offered to God —
to violate
faith — to
destroy, so far as lies in their power, the great bond of
human society. And what must
not the offence be to God which they commit, by
continually
drawing near to Him with their lips, when their hearts are far
from him? (Isaiah
29:13; Matthew 15:8; Mark 7:6) - He is “of
purer eyes than to
behold iniquity.”
(Habakkuk 1:13) - “Without
holiness no one shall see Him.”
(Hebrews 12:14) - “Let the priests sanctify themselves.”
– (v. 22)
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