Exodus 19

Updated
2001-05-26; 14:30:55utc

B. At Sinai Chapters 19-40

Here we arrive at the first goal God had set for His people: the encounter at Sinai. Here is to take place the "festival to YHWH in the desert," as God had Moses tell Pharaoh in ch. 5:1. Here God speaks to Israel in an unprecedented way and here He pitches His tent among us, which is the Old Testament image of the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ in the New Testament. It is at this place also that Israel commits its most heinous sin of idolatry in erecting the image of the Gold Calf.

This chapter is one of the pinnacles of the whole Bible. Nowhere else did God reveal Himself in such an awesome manner, with such outward manifestations of His greatness as in this chapter. Yet, according to the writer of the Hebrew epistle, God's revelation to us in Jesus Christ surpasses this one. In Hebrews we read: "You have not come to a mountain that can be touched and that is burning with fire; to darkness, gloom and storm; To a trumpet blast or to such a voice speaking words that those who heard it begged that no further word be spoken to them, Because they could not bear what was commanded: 'If even an animal touches the mountain, it must be stoned.' The sight was so terrifying that Moses said, 'I am trembling with fear.' But you have come to Mount Zion, to the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God. You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly, To the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven. You have come to God, the judge of all men, to the spirits of righteous men made perfect, To Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel."[ 1 ]

Israel arrives at Mount Sinai three months after their departure from Egypt. Vs. 1 tells us "on the very day." The month is the month of Sivan on the Hebrew calendar. Adam Clarke writes about the wilderness of Sinai: "Mount Sinai is called by the Arabs Jibel Mousa or the Mount of Moses, or, by way of eminence, El Tor, The Mount. It is one hill, with two peaks or summits; one is called Horeb, the other Sinai. Horeb was probably its most ancient name, and might designate the whole mountain; but as the Lord had appeared to Moses on this mountain in a "bush," seneh, chap. iii. 2, from this circumstance it might have received the name of Sinai."

The Pulpit Commentary states concerning the opening verses of this chapter: "From Rephidim in the Wady Feiran, where they had discomfited Amalek (ch. xvii. 8-13), the Israelites moved towards Sinai, probably by the two passes known as Wady Solaf 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 Desert of Sinai.' It is 'two miles long, and half-a-mile broad', ... 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 south-eastern extremity on abrupt cliffs of granite rock rising from it nearly perpendicularly, and known as the Ras Sufsafeh." Evidently, the place where God revealed Himself is like a cliff which rises like a huge altar, "visible against the sky in lonely grandeur from end to end of the whole plain."

According to Unger's Bible Dictionary, there have been attempts by modern scholars to identify a mountainous region in the vicinity of Edom as the actual site of Mount Sinai, since that area shows signs of ancient volcanic activity. It is thought that God's revelation to Israel was actually an eruption of a volcano. Although the outward signs of the manifestation of God's presence are similar to the eruption of a volcano, there is no indication that there was lava coming down the slope of the mountain. The theophany may have looked like a volcanic eruption, but it was obviously much more than that.

Apparently, Moses ascended the mountain three times within the space of three days. We read in vs. 3 that Moses went up to God. Probably the Shekinah pillar of cloud and fire had moved to the top of the mountain at that time. In vs. 8 we read: "So Moses brought their answer back to the LORD," which would indicate a second ascent. Then in vs. 20 we read: "The LORD descended to the top of Mount Sinai and called Moses to the top of the mountain. So Moses went up." This happened on the third day, the day on which the glory of the Lord appeared to the whole congregation of Israel.

The first time Moses meets with the Lord on the top of the mountain, he is given a loving and tender invitation to pass on to the people. God addresses the whole nation when He says: "You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself. Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, You will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation."

The words describe in the first place what it means to be saved from the powers of darkness. In the next chapter God will introduce the Ten Commandments with the words: "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery." Paul puts this in New Testament terms when he says in Colossians: "For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves."[ 2 ] Salvation begins with the defeat of the powers that held us captive.

It is very interesting that God calls His people by two different names: "The house of Jacob" and "the people of Israel." The two terms are not completely synonymous. Jacob was the cheater, the deceiver. At Peniel he became Israel, the Prince of God, the overcomer. In addressing the people of Israel as "the house of Jacob," God reminds them of their past. God sees them as a people who had gained the victory over their past of sinful plotting and deceit. This may not have been the actual experience of every individual, but it is their status before God. That their spiritual experiences remained well below their actual status is clear from their behavior. They constantly grumbled before the Lord.

The image of the eagle and its dealings with her young ones describes at the same time the tenderness and the discipline of God's dealing with man. The eagle teaches her brood to fly. It seems cruel to drop a young one from the nest and let it, apparently, fall to its death. But, if the young bird fails to spread its wings and bear itself up on the air currents, the strong wings of the mother are underneath it to save it and bring it back to the nest. The eagle knows that its young can fly, and she wants her offspring to discover their potential. God knows what it means that He created man in His image and He wants man to know it too. Isaiah says: "But those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint."[ 3 ]

Moses, in his hymn in Deuteronomy, uses the same image God uses here. "Like an eagle that stirs up its nest and hovers over its young, that spreads its wings to catch them and carries them on its pinions."[ 4 ] The four archangels that surround the throne of God show the head of an eagle, according to Ezekiel.[ 5 ] And in Revelation the Apostle John describes them as follows: "The first living creature was like a lion, the second was like an ox, the third had a face like a man, the fourth was like a flying eagle."[ 6 ] So, God had, so to speak, the image before His eyes when He gave Moses the description of His dealing with His people. At the end of his life, Moses will capture again the image in words that relate to human relationships when he says: "The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms."[ 7 ]

So, for Israel, Mount Sinai is God's eagle's nest. It is the place where they belong because God is there. Man is born to live there. We are used to living on the plains, where the horizon is invisible. But God made us to conquer our limitations. Looking back over his life, David says: "He makes my feet like the feet of a deer; he enables me to stand on the heights."[ 8 ] Living on earth, hemmed in by the limitations sin and mortality impose upon us, all this sounds scary and risky. But God intends us to live on the highest plain, not just on top of the mountain, but in Heaven itself.

In vs. 5 God explains His purpose for calling Israel unto Himself. He wants Israel to be His "treasured possession," His segullaw, which means "a jewel." The word has the connotation of something that is hidden. We should think of the treasure in Jesus' parable where He says: "The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field."[ 9 ] God considered Israel as precious to Him. Sadly enough, this fact never penetrated the mind of the Israelites. They never accepted God's eternal love for them. They were always suspicious of God's motives, and so they shut themselves out of all the blessings that were in store for them. The generation to whom these words were addressed even forfeited the promised land.

God's love is unconditional, but the experience of it depends on our obedience. The Interlinear Bible renders vs. 5 as follows: "And now if surely you will listen to My voice, and will keep My covenant, you shall become to Me a special treasure above all the nations, for to Me (is) all the earth." The implication is that, actually, God would like to consider all the nations as precious to Himself. The reason that God created man was that He wanted to enjoy man. Fellowship with God and sharing His glory is man's reason d'être. But since the majority of mankind has severed its relationship with God, God chose Israel as the means of healing; in order to reconcile the whole world with Himself. Evidently, the NIV misses the point when it renders the last sentence of this verse as: "Although the whole earth is mine." It is not in spite of, but because of the fact that the whole world belongs to God that He chose Israel. He intends to repossess the whole field, not just the treasure. "The field is the world."[ 10 ]

The key to the execution of God's plan was Israel's obedience and the keeping of the covenant with God. The Hebrew word for covenant that is used here is "Beriyth" which comes from the word for cutting. The reference is to the custom of cutting up an animal in pieces and to the passing of the people who make the covenant between those pieces. It is the covenant God made with Abraham.[ 11 ] The Israelites must have understood that God was referring to this covenant. The story must have been part of their heritage.

That God's covenant with Israel, as with Abraham, is a covenant that will not only bless themselves, or that is not for themselves in the first place, becomes clear from the following verse, where we read: "You will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation." God had said to Abraham: "I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you."[ 12 ] And here He says to Israel that they will be the link between Himself and the rest of the world.

Israel never fully understood this. They gloried in their election and they ended up believing that God considered them precious because they were so special themselves. Modern Judaism carries this to the extreme. In Herman Wouck's book This Is My God, he states that Judaists want to be left alone. They are not interested in converting the rest of the world. They want to be a kingdom, but they reject the priesthood.

In Israel's history we see very few examples of a priestly outreach to a lost world. Jonah was forced into going to Nineveh and he was very unhappy with the success his preaching achieved. One of the outstanding examples is the little Jewish slave girl in the story of Naaman. We read: "She said to her mistress, 'If only my master would see the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy.' "[ 13 ] But she was exceptional. Israel never became the Kingdom of priests God intended it to be. There are some outreach themes in the psalms of David and in the prophets, but it wasn't until the glorified Jesus Christ sent down the Holy Spirit that the Jewish church caught the vision of "Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and the ends of the earth."

God's drawing Israel to Himself had the double purpose of introducing them to joyful fellowship with Himself and through living in this bond of fellowship, reaching out to a lost world to save it. This was an option for the whole nation. The only Jew to ever fully enter in to this plan was our Lord Jesus Christ.

John sums up the essence of the feast of YHWH in Revelation when he says: "To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood, And has made us to be a kingdom and priests to serve his God and Father; to him be glory and power for ever and ever! Amen." The redeemed in Christ are "a kingdom of priests."[ 14 ]

The Lord adds to this the designation "a holy nation." Ultimately, this means that God is planning to impart His holiness, that is the essence of His being, to His people. On the one hand we read God's demand in Leviticus: "I am the LORD your God; consecrate yourselves and be holy, because I am holy."[ 15 ] And on the other hand, God says: "Consider them holy, because I the LORD am holy; I who make you holy."[ 16 ] The holiness of Israel as a nation is a very dubious subject. They hardly ever demonstrated any inclination toward holiness. Very few of them even came to the point that they were willing to consecrate themselves in order to become holy by a creative act of God in their lives. But this takes away nothing of God's intent with man. He wants to make man holy. And, as we read in Revelation, His way of making us holy and a kingdom of priests is by washing us in the blood of Jesus Christ.

In vs. 7 and 8 Moses passes on the Word of God to the nation via the elders. These are probably the representatives, chosen in the previous chapter. They must have conveyed the message to the people whom they represented, and the answer of the people is transmitted to Moses. In vs. 8 we read: "The people all responded together, 'We will do everything the LORD has said.' " It has been said that the reaction of the people indicated that they did not understand the purpose of the law and the condition of their own heart. Both may be true, but this doesn't mean that their reaction to God's gracious invitation was insincere. Who, after all, understand the workings of God's grace? Very few people have an inkling of the seriousness of their own condition. At the moment of new birth, man may think that he is not what God wants him to be, but he intends to obey as best as he can. It takes time to come to the realization that our heart remains deceitful and that there would not even be the beginning of obedience in our lives without the help of the Holy Spirit. The same people who pledged obedience here, said a few weeks later "Come, make us gods who will go before us" (ch.32:1).

After Moses had given the answer of the people to God, the Lord announced that He would reveal Himself and that the people will hear the audible voice that speaks to Moses, so that his leadership will be confirmed once for all. God knew that both Moses and the people would need this kind of confirmation because of the trouble that lay ahead of them. They would be tempted to question Moses' leadership. As a matter of fact, they did, and although they went through the experience of hearing God speak to Moses, the memory did not linger long enough for them to keep the faith. Doubt and rebellion raised its head within days after this most awesome of demonstrations of God's glory. When God spoke twice publicly to Jesus Christ,[ 17 ] it did not sway the mood of the people on the day of Christ's crucifixion either.

We gather from verse 10 that Moses ascended the mountain for the third time. It could be, though, that this verse fuses with the preceding ones and that Moses actually stayed on the mount until God had finished speaking to him. We find in Scripture that, at moments of dramatic height, the chronology of the report sometimes suffers. In the story of the raising of Lazarus, for instance, John cannot bring himself to an orderly account of the events. A trace of disorganization in the retelling often heightens the drama. And God's revelation of Himself on the mountain was certainly a most dramatic event. It left its impact upon Moses and many of the Israelites. On some of them it seems to have made hardly any impression at all.

God gave the Israelites three days to prepare themselves for the encounter with Him. It took Jesus three days to prepare Himself for the resurrection. We may see a parallel between the two events, because, in spite of the fact that Israel did not remain faithful to their pledge to obey the Lord, God intended them to enter upon a new life. The feast of YHWH was a feast of life. There had to be an outward preparation which symbolized the inner cleansing of sin. They had to wash their clothes. In expressing the reality of sanctification, the Bible often uses the image of new clothes being put on. The prodigal son was clothed in the best robe the father possessed.[ 18 ] In Revelation we read how the souls under the altar in heaven are given a new robe, awaiting the day of their resurrection.[ 19 ] Sanctification means being clothed with the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. So when God tells Israel to wash their clothes, He means for them to be holy.

God's concern for the welfare of His people is clear in the warning He gives to them not to touch the mountain. When we see Mount Sinai rising up as an, almost, perpendicular wall, we understand how easy it would have been for man to touch it. It would have been the same as the modern Jews touching the wailing wall. The presence of God made the whole mountain a living sanctuary in the same way that it made the place of the burning bush a holy place when God revealed Himself to Moses for the first time. In ch. 3:5 God says to Moses: "Do not come any closer,... Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground." Touching the mountain would have been the equivalent of touching a live wire. The difference here, though, is that the person who trespassed would not die automatically; he was to be executed by his peers. Evidently, the holiness of God would penetrate his body, while his soul was still unredeemed. A physical touch would transmit this condition to other people, which would make the incongruent condition spread like an infection. People would die slowly because their bodies were holy and their souls were not. That is why trespassers had to be executed without being touched by other hands to prevent the infection from spreading.

This is hard for us to understand, because we live no longer under the dispensation where the body can become holy and the soul remain untouched. Our sanctification is from the inside out. That is the blessing of the New Testament dispensation and the work of the Holy Spirit. If our soul is saved, our body will be renewed in the resurrection. If our bodies were raised from the dead and our souls remained in their corrupted condition, that would mean disaster. It would be the essence of hell.

We read in vs. 14 that Moses consecrated the people after he came down from the mountain. The KJV says: "He sanctified them." How he did this we are not told. It sounds as if, by the authority God had given him, he put the holiness of God upon the people to prepare them to see the Lord. It would have been impossible for them to see God without God sharing with them some of His holiness. The writer to the Hebrews says: "Without holiness no one will see the Lord."[ 20 ] It is impossible for man to meet God if there is not some common basis. God provides this basis for us in Jesus Christ. We find common ground with the eternal God in the Incarnation. Some of this mystery was implied in Moses' consecration of the people. Although all this was expressed in outward symbols, yet the symbols stood for a spiritual reality.

God provides the basis Himself, but as human beings we have our share of responsibility. Moses consecrated the people, but they had to wash their clothes themselves. We read in Revelation about the people who came out of the great tribulation, that "they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb."[ 21 ] God makes the provisions but we have to apply them to our lives. The people must have understood, though, that the washing of their clothes was more than a matter of water and soap, but that it had a spiritual dimension. Moses adds to this: "Abstain from sexual relations." We do not find this injunction in the orders God gave to Moses and they may have been Moses' own interpretation of God's command. Adam Clarke believes that the question is not whether a man should approach a woman, but whether he should come close to fire. In my word study, I have been unable to find any reason for a different translation than woman. We should not see in this command an inference that sexual relations within marriage would be incompatible with spirituality.

On the third day the Lord came down upon Mount Sinai. This was the day of the "Feast of YHWH" which had been announced in the hearing of Pharaoh. For this very purpose God had brought His people out of Egypt. The appearance was, evidently, much more than the column of fire that had been guiding the people since their departure from Egypt. This was the glory of the Lord which came down from heaven to earth. The signs accompanying this revelation and thunder and lightning. In the book of Revelation, John mentions several times the phenomena of thunder and lightning in connection with the throne of God. In Revelation we read: "From the throne came flashes of lightning, rumblings and peals of thunder."[ 22 ] And in a later chapter of the same book: "Then God's temple in heaven was opened, and within his temple was seen the ark of his covenant. And there came flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder, an earthquake and a great hailstorm."[ 23 ]

On earth we know thunder and lightning as natural phenomena in connection with atmospheric conditions. What was seen at Mount Sinai had no connection with earthly conditions; the thunder and lightning indicated the presence of God. A severe thunderstorm would not have affected the people the way the appearance of God did here. We read in vs. 13 that everyone in the camp trembled. And vs. 18 tells us that the whole mountain trembled violently. The writer to the Hebrews tells us Moses' reaction, which is not mentioned in the Exodus account: "The sight was so terrifying that Moses said, 'I am trembling with fear.' "[ 24 ]

When God descended in the Old Testament the earth trembled. When God came down to earth in the New Testament, hardly anyone noticed. The coming of Jesus Christ was not accompanied by earth-shaking signs. He came almost unnoticed, except by a few. Yet, although God's revelation at Sinai was much more overwhelming than the Incarnation, it did not change the human heart. Jesus' coming to earth has shaken up this world to the core. The world hasn't stopped shaking since. We sometimes tend to wish that we could have seen God's revelation as the Old Testament people did. This indicates that we understand very little of what we possess in Jesus Christ. Going from Bethlehem and Golgotha to Mount Sinai would mean more than one step back. The apostle Paul catches the essence of the difference, when he says: "For what was glorious has no glory now in comparison with the surpassing glory."[ 25 ]

We can picture the procession as it is painted before our eyes in vs. 17, "Then Moses led the people out of the camp to meet with God, and they stood at the foot of the mountain." What an awesome sight it must have been to see Sinai smoking like an erupting volcano with lightning flashing and the peals of thunder and more than two million people walking toward the mountain wall, with Moses leading them on. Again we see in Moses the image of our Lord Jesus Christ as He brings "many sons to glory."[ 26 ] Then Moses lifts up his voice in prayer and God answers him and calls him up the mountain.

It is difficult to piece the chronology of the events together. Moses went up the mountain several times. Twice he stayed there for forty days. It is as if this chapter gives us a condensation of a series of events, or that it describes the beginning of God's revelation, which continues in later chapters. The chapters 20 through 23 seem to be an insertion of commands that were given a few days later. It seems that, actually, ch. 19 should run into ch. 24. Also, in ch. 24:3 we read the same words the people spoke as in ch. 19:8, "When Moses went and told the people all the LORD's words and laws, they responded with one voice, 'Everything the LORD has said we will do.' " So it could be that chapters 19 and 24 describe the same event and the same day.

This day Moses ascended at least two times. Whether he reached the top the first time he went up, we don't know. It seems that God sent him back before he arrived at the summit. God wanted Moses to go down and warn the people of the danger of curiosity. What follows is a strange dialogue. Moses argues with God that His warning is superfluous, since the mountain had been cordoned off and the people were told not to try to break through. Moses acts as if he knows better. But God overrules him and sends him back. He does not want that the people would perish because of some carnal curiosity and, evidently, this danger was much more real than Moses imagined.

Vs. 22 seems curiously out of context: "Even the priests, who approach the LORD, must consecrate themselves, or the LORD will break out against them." The priesthood of Aaron and his sons is not mentioned until chapter 28. The question arises what is meant with "the priests" in this verse. Since, evidently, no ordination to the priesthood had taken place yet, it is doubtful that Aaron and his sons were meant here. In vs. 6 God had called the whole nation of Israel a kingdom of priests. It could be, therefore, that God meant the elders of the people, or the heads of the various units that had been formed in the previous chapter. In vs. 14 we read that Moses consecrated the people. It could be that the priests felt that, since they were serving the Lord already, they did not have to comply with the special consecration to which the people were submitted and that some of them had refused to go through the rites of purification. It would make sense that God would send Moses back down, specifically for the purpose of warning those people that they were playing a dangerous game. Later, in Leviticus,[ 27 ] we read that Aaron's sons Nathan and Abihu disregarded the warning of the Lord and paid for this with their lives. It could be that this kind of attitude was prevalent among the priests at that time.

Holiness is serious business. Every person who enters full-time Christian service runs the danger of becoming a "professional Christian." Prayer becomes routine and the edge of spirituality dulls. We may not always be conscious of the Lord's presence with us, and that does not really matter. But if we start taking the Lord's presence for granted in our daily life, we lose the fear of holiness and we are on dangerous ground. If sin creeps in, and our conscience no longer warns us or condemn us, we act as if we can do as we please, because the Lord does not see it or He doesn't mind. That is why Paul says: "Come back to your senses as you ought, and stop sinning; for there are some who are ignorant of God; I say this to your shame."[ 28 ]

It is obvious that ch. 24:1 and 2 pick up where ch. 19 ends. We read in ch. 19:24, "The LORD replied, 'Go down and bring Aaron up with you. But the priests and the people must not force their way through to come up to the LORD, or he will break out against them.' So Moses went down to the people and told them." And ch. 24:1-2 begin with: "Then he said to Moses, 'Come up to the LORD, you and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel. You are to worship at a distance, But Moses alone is to approach the LORD; the others must not come near. And the people may not come up with him.'" When we get to that chapter, we will see that this meeting was prior to Moses' ascending into the cloud when he spent forty days in the presence of the Lord.

We are not told when the giving of the Ten Commandments, which are recorded in ch. 20:1-17, took place. Probably they were given at a later date but inserted at this point. Anyhow, even if they were given on the first day of God's revelation, they would have been given orally. It wasn't until Moses entered the cloud in which the Lord was present that he received the two tablets of stone on which the Commandments were inscribed. We read in ch. 24:12 "The LORD said to Moses, 'Come up to me on the mountain and stay here, and I will give you the tablets of stone, with the law and commands I have written for their instruction.' "

As we mentioned before, the encounter with God on Mount Sinai must have been such an overwhelming experience that one could hardly expect to find an orderly chronological account of the events. The mixed-up order is an indication of the intensity of the drama that took place. We see the same kind of holy confusion in the account of Jesus' resurrection from the dead. Those events are too great to be put down in neat little paragraphs in journalist fashion.

[ 1 ] Heb. 12:18-25

[ 2 ] Col. 1:13

[ 3 ] Isa. 40:31

[ 4 ] Deut. 32:11

[ 5 ] Ezek. 1:10

[ 6 ] Rev. 4:7

[ 7 ] Deut. 33:27

[ 8 ] Ps. 18:33

[ 9 ] Matt. 13:44

[ 10 ] Matt. 13:38

[ 11 ] Gen. 15:9,10,17

[ 12 ] Gen. 12:3

[ 13 ] II Kings 5:3

[ 14 ] Rev. 1:5,6

[ 15 ] Lev. 11:44

[ 16 ] Lev. 21:8

[ 17 ] Matt. 3:17, and John 12:28

[ 18 ] Luke 15:22

[ 19 ] Rev. 6:11

[ 20 ] Heb. 12:14

[ 21 ] Rev. 7:14

[ 22 ] Rev. 4:5

[ 23 ] Rev. 11:19

[ 24 ] Heb. 12:21

[ 25 ] II Cor. 3:10

[ 26 ] Heb. 2:10

[ 27 ] Lev. 10

[ 28 ] I Cor. 15:34