The Story

This is Mount Sinai, the grand, stern mountain to which the Lord had led the children of Israel by the cloud and fire and by the hand of Moses. It is very bare and rocky, and rises like a wall out of the plain. The children of Israel were camping in this plain and in the side valleys. Seeing how the rocky cliff of Mount Sinai rises like a wall, we can understand the command that no one must go up into the mountain and no hand should touch it. The stern mountain would help the people to feel that the laws which the Lord taught them there must be obeyed. All the signs of power about the mountain were to make the people know that the commandments were Divine laws. The Lord called Moses up into the mountain and gave him many laws to teach the people, but they all heard the Ten Commandments spoken from the mountain. The people got ready three days before and washed their clothes. Then on the third day in the morning 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 were in the camp trembled. For the Lord came down upon the mountain in fire and a great smoke rose from the mountain and the whole mountain shook. The people heard the trumpet sounding louder and louder. Then after Moses had been called once more into the mountain and sent down again to warn the people not to come near, the Ten Commandments were spoken by the Lord. And God spake all these words, saying, "I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before me." Let all of us who can, say the Commandments which the people heard. And all the people saw and heard the thunderings and the lightnings and the noise of the trumpet and the mountain smoking. And when the people saw it they removed and stood afar off.

Look well at the picture of Mount Sinai. It will help you to understand the account of the giving of the Ten Commandments to the children of Israel by the Lord. Reading our lesson, we think of Moses several times going up into the mountain to be instructed by the Lord and coming down to instruct the people in the plain. He was preparing them for a great event, for hearing the Ten Commandments spoken by the Lord from the mountain. Where must the people stand? Why were they not allowed to go up into the mountain or even to touch it? Because they were in a low, worldly state. They also could not know the heavenly meaning of the Lord's laws, but could receive them only as stern, literal laws forbidding evil. Contrast this scene at Sinai with the scene when Jesus led His disciples and the multitude into a mountain in Galilee and spoke to them the Sermon on the Mount, opening to them some of the stern laws of Sinai and showing their Christian and heavenly meaning. Do you see why in one case the people must stand beneath in the plain and in the other case they were gathered about the Lord in the mountain?

What signs of power did the people see and hear about Mount Sinai, given to make the people feel that the Commandments were Divine? The laws were not wholly new in the world. These and similar laws had long been known in many nations, but people must learn again what they had forgotten, that they are God's laws. Many instructions were given to the children of Israel through Moses, but they all heard the Ten Commandments spoken from the mountain. Read Deut. 5:22-24.

The Commandments are not given to make life hard, but to warn us of dangers and to show us the safe ways to go in. They are like friendly signposts which tell the stranger: "Not this way, there is a bog or a precipice here. This way the road is safe and comes out to a beautiful place." The Commandments not only warn us and tell us the safe ways, but give us strength to do right.

1. How long were the children of Israel on the journey from Egypt to Mount Sinai? (Exod. 19:1) How long did they stay at the mountain? (Num. 10:11-12)

2. Where did the people stand to hear the Ten Commandments?

3. What signs of power did the people see and hear when the Commandments were given? How did these signs affect them?

4. Were the Ten Commandments given for the children of Israel only, or for everybody? How do the words of the first Commandment in Exod. 20:2 apply to us?

Spiritual Study

In the coming to Sinai we find the fulfillment of the Lord's saying to Moses at the bush, "Ye shall serve God upon this mountain" (Exod. 3:12), and also of the saying to Pharaoh that they must worship God in the wilderness (Exod. 3:18). In reality the blessings of Canaan lay beyond, as the blessings of heaven lie beyond for us. But the essential thing is to choose the service of the Lord; the rest will follow.

Consider the significance of the scene at Sinai, the stern, rocky mountains (remember again the ninetieth Psalm), the signs of power given to impress the people with the Divineness of the Commandments. (Exod. 19:19; T. 282)

Why the strict and repeated command that the people should not come up into the mountain nor touch it? Can it mean unwillingness on the Lord's part that the people should come near to Him? No, but it shows the impossibility for those in low and evil states to come near to Him, like the guard at the gate of Eden. The association of everyone with heaven while in this world and hereafter must be according to the kind and degree of that person’s own heavenly quality. The association of the spiritual is with the spiritual, of the celestial with the celestial. (A. 8794, 8797)

It is an interesting study to compare the scenes at Sinai and on the mountain in Galilee when the Lord spoke the Sermon on the Mount. Another interesting contrast is between the dark clouds which shrouded Mount Sinai and the bright cloud of the mountain of transfiguration. (Matt. 7:5) A cloud represents such simple knowledge as we have of the Lord and heaven, which reveals the Lord to us and at the same time veils the Divineness of His truth and love. If our thought is very ignorant and obscure, the cloud is dark; but if more of heavenly light and some sense of the Lord's goodness shine for us in the knowledge that we have, the cloud is bright. Remember the clouds and the rainbow in the story of Noah. (A. 8781, 8814)

"I bear you on eagles’ wings." Find the same figure in Deut. 32:10-12. Think how it is that the eagles’ wings are symbols of the Lord’s protecting, sustaining power. Birds are types of powers of thought, and the eagle which is a bird of extremely strong sight and of lofty and long sustained flight, represents lofty spiritual thought. The wings are especially the power for such thought. So in the highest sense the eagle becomes the type of the Lord's Divine thought and providence, and the eagles’ wings become types of the power of His providence, protecting and sustaining and bringing us to Himself. (A. 8764)

"The voice of the trumpet sounded long, and waxed louder and louder." Several times in the Book of Revelation the announcement of truth from the Lord is made with a trumpet. Remember also the silver trumpets that were blown for setting forward on the march and for going to war. (Num. 10:1-10) And remember the trumpets with the ark before the walls of Jericho and in the hands of Gideon’s men. The trumpet blast suggests the power of the Lord's truth speaking from His love. The sound growing louder and louder, represents the clothing of the still small voice of the Lord's truth in successively lower and more natural forms as it comes down to those in natural states. (A. 8815, 8823)

The Commandments are the laws of life for all human beings and even for angels. How can that be? Have not good people and angels learned not to do the wrong acts which the Commandments forbid, and not to indulge the wrong thoughts and feelings which they also forbid? Still even angels need the Commandments and will forever need them, for each one opens the door to some heavenly good, when the opposite evil is repented of and this good can develop and increase forever. There is no good which can possibly be enjoyed in this world or in heaven for which the way is not opened by one or another of the Ten Commandments. (A. 8862, 8902 end)

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